Looking back at the archives, I noticed that I did not mention the super Valentine's Day gift I got from Sarah. She took a local sports theme, getting me the Sports Illustrated souvenir edition on the Pats' Super Bowl win, and tickets for the Celtics, Bruins, and Red Sox.

We've now gone to the Bruins and Celtics games, and if they are any indication, I am never to view a professional sporting event in the Fleet Center again. I should also scalp the Sox tickets ASAP so as not to infect them with the horrors of the last two days.

The fruits of this gift of love were a 6-2 whitewashing of the Bruins by the Carolina Hurricanes, and a 100-87 thumping of the Celtics by the Charlotte Hornets. Neither game was as close as the score indicates.

The only really interesting part of the Bruins game was Sergei Samsonov getting into a fight, which he almost never does. Apparently he took umbrage to a hit to his knee. The game was chippy all the way through, but mostly with clutch and grab sort of fights.

The Hornets grabbed a 10-0 lead and never looked back. At one point they were up by 25. Looking at the standings, I didn't realize the Hornets were around .500 (now at that mark after last night), which makes their win less of an upset than I thought. Apparently, they aren't going to limp into their possible move to New Orleans.

Both games saw the usual break time nonsense with people acting like idiots to get on the big screen. It wasn't as bad as my first trip to the Fleet Center to see a Celtics game 3 or 4 years ago, which either means people have calmed down or I'm just getting used to it. The promotional games for the Celtics are much better than the Bruins, but there are more breaks to use in basketball, and of course it's easier to get on and off the playing surface.

There's not much more I can say about the last couple of nights, other than to note that I definately feel the loss of the Garden. I think growing up in the 1980s, and getting a chance to see the Celtics of that era play a few times, spoiled me for the new, plastic corporate experience. That the current team isn't anywhere near that earlier team in talent may be more of the reason for my distaste than anything else. I can cope with the sterile and heavily branded arena, but having a winning team to focus on would make it much easier.