Bruins fans hammered long before puck drops
How far would you be willing to go to watch your team play in the Stanley Cup Finals?
In Boston, some fans would risk seeing their car get bashed by a sledgehammer.
"Toucher and Rich" of FM radio station 98.5 The Sports Hub held the "Bruins Ticket Bash" on Monday morning, with tickets to that night's Game 3 on the line -- as well as a couple of contestants' cars.
Joe McCarthy and Mike Monterio were the "lucky" contestants, and the rules were simple: Correctly answer some Bruins trivia and win tickets to the game. Get them wrong, and former Patriots quarterback Scott Zolak was standing by with a sledgehammer.
After a hard-fought battle, McCarthy stood tall with tickets to Game 3.
"I came here to lose my headlights, but lost my windows too," McCarthy said, standing on the broken glass around his 1999 Grand Prix. "It was all worth it. I'm just happy to be watching Bruins hockey in June."
Surprisingly, Monterio thought the same.
"I had a blast," he said. "Joe is pretty good, he was tough to beat."
McCarthy took his brother Frank to the game, In return, Frank had to drive.
■ ANYONE SEEN J.J.? -- Yes, that was J.J. Barea out on the court Sunday at American Airlines Center. But something appeared to be missing with the Dallas Mavericks' diminutive backup guard.
Oh yeah, it was his shot.
Barea is having a dreadful NBA Finals, helping put the Mavericks in a 2-1 hole heading into today's Game 4. He is shooting 5-for-23 from the floor and has made only 1 of 8 3-point attempts. He had four turnovers and only one assist Sunday.
"I think I had some open looks, especially (some) 3s, and they felt great and some were long and some were short. They just didn't go down for me," Barea said.
"I'm going to keep shooting them. This team needs me to make shots, and everybody needs to make open shots, and we kinda struggled with that (Sunday)."
■ ROONEY'S NEW LOOK -- Manchester United star Wayne Rooney came to grips with the reality that at age 25, he was going bald. So Rooney did what any vain male would do -- he got a hair transplant.
Rooney let his followers on Twitter know, saying, "Just to confirm to all my followers I have had a hair transplant. I was going bald at 25 why not. I'm delighted with the result."
Only good can come of this, not the least of which is doing shampoo commercials.
■ MORE UPHEAVAL IN EGYPT -- Following in the footsteps of ousted president Hosni Mubarak, Egypt has forced its national soccer coach to resign.
Egyptian fans were livid in the wake of the team's scoreless draw with South Africa over the weekend in the African Cup of Nations tournament. With the team likely not moving on in the qualifying, coach Hassan Shehata is moving on.
Shehata coached Egypt for six years. He also had close ties to Mubarak, who was ousted in February after the nation erupted in protests.
COMPILED BY STEVE CARP
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
