5 BOROUGH SPORTS

I know it premiered last Wednesday, but today I finally had the opportunity to watch this year’s first episode of HBO’s 24/7: Road to the Winter Classic. Once again, HBO has created another masterpiece. Last year’s Penguins-Capitals 24/7 was one of the best shows on television, so I had huge expectations for this year’s show. Even though I hate both of these teams, it’s great to watch how the two franchises go about their daily operations. Last year we saw how Dan Blyelsma and Bruce Boudreau communicated with their players and coaching staffs. Now we get to see how John Tortorella and Peter Laviolette work with theirs. I was surprised with the calmness of Rangers’ coach John Tortorella. I have a completely different respect for him knowing he’s not as much of a loose cannon. I had an image of Torts similar to Bruce Boudreau from last year – just dropping f-bombs everywhere. But Torts is more collected and the Rangers seem to respond well to him. Peter Laviolette seems to be more soft-spoken, but intense coach. I loved Laviolette when he was head coach of the Islanders from 2001-2003. He rejuvenated the Isles after the team suffered for eight straight years. So I’ll always have respect for the guy. Luckily for us, we have three more one-hour episodes of this phenomenal show. More to come on 24/7: Rangers/Flyers in the weeks ahead…

Here was the final scene of last year’s 24/7 – Penguins/Capitals:

This entry was posted on December 20, 2011 at 12:36 am and is filed under Rangers, Shout Out of the Week. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.