Frienemy Friday, Edition 2: Boston Bruins

Check out my consistency!  Two down, 27 to go!  This is craziness.  Boston Bruins.  2011 Stanley Cup Champions.  (Totally not bitter.  At least it was Boston.  It could have been worse.)  Once again, the focus is on a single player: Andrew Ference.

Obviously I was searching for the most appropriate picture I could find.  That's right, Ference.  Fuck the Habs!  Beauty.  (I should note that he was fined $2500 for this.  Way to go.)

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Five non-hockey things to know about Andrew Ference:
1. He was born March 17th (Happy St. Patty's!  He's playing in the right city now.), 1979 in Edmonton, Alberta.  I sincerely hope he drinks these on his birthday:

2. He's a big fan of Arsenal.

I think this is my big sister's team.  (She can smack me the next time she sees me if I'm wrong.)  All I know is that it's Premier League FOOTBALL.  (Get it right, y'all.)  Also, footballers are...awesome (You totally thought I was going to say "hot."  Hot.  Hot.  Which they also are.  My girly hormones are showing.)

3. He's environmentally-conscious.  He started the Carbon Neutral Challenge with David Suzuki as a NHLPA program while he was playing in Calgary.  There are now over 500 NHLers who participate in the program.  Count me impressed.

4. He's married to Krista Bradford and has two daughters, Ava Tye and Stella.

Don't ask me to tell you who is who in this picture.  I'm not that big of a creeper.

5. The boy has about a million tattoos.  His tattoo artist is Scott Ford of Smiling Buddha Tattoos.  Who is, apparently, a big Bruins fan and came out and did all of the Cup tattoos for the team.  On the same day.  While they were all packing up.  Oh man.

I totally did not choose these pictures for eye candy.  Though feel free to use them as such if you so please.

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Five former/current Penguins that Andrew Ference has played with who are still playing in the NHL/AHL:

1. Marian Hossa.  God rest his soul.  (Too extreme?)  Who is now playing for the Chicago Blackhawks.  I think he finally found his team.  Good for him.

Poor baby.  And to think.  He had to do that again the following year.  Woo!!!!!!!!!!!

2. Jordan Leopold.  We didn't get a lot of games out of him, but that's ok.  He was here.  And then he wasn't.  (I suppose the same could be said of Hossa.  It's just easier to feel betrayed by Hossa.)

He did a good job for us and now he's doing a good job for Buffalo.  (Weirdly, even though Buffalo is pretty close to Pittsburgh, I can't dig up much enmity toward them.  Maybe it's because they're Buffalo and the only time I think about them is when I think about Ryan Miller.  Who is so fucking cool, it's ridiculous.  USA, all the way.)

3. Dany Sabourin.  He had TWO stints in the Burgh.  Lucky duckling.  He's sitting his ass down in Hershey right now.  Stupid Caps with their million good goalies.  So not fair.  Hogging is not appreciated.  (Except in the case of Penguins and centers.)

Dany's logged 16 wins for the Pittsburgh Penguins and I assume that the crying baby on the side of his goalie mask is a child of his.

4. Eric Godard.  Godsy!!!!!!!!!!!  I know he got scratched more than he played, but he was motherfuckin awesome.  (Engells is cooler though.  No offense, Godsy.)  Dallas sent him down to their AHL affiliate, the Texas Stars.  They will be coming up to Michigan to play Grand Rapids on January 13th.  I'm hoping to be there [if he's still with them and it looks like he'll be playing.]

Definition of Eric Godard, right there.

5. And saving the best and most important for last, Brooksie!  Brooks Orpik.  Crazy eyes.

Fun fact: his brother does the same crazy eyes.  They're like twins. It's creepy.  I'm not going to say a lot about Brooksie here, because it would turn into the Brooks Orpik show, except that I'm super-duper happy he's back and playing.

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Five former K-Wings that Andrew Ference has played with (I've been pretty impressed with how the number five has been working out for me.):

1. Michael Kiesman played with Ference on the 98-99 Portland Winter Hawks team.  Kiesman played for the Michigan K-Wings for 9 games in 1999-00 which yielded 1 assist and 2 fights.  I looked to see if I could find any video evidence.  I'm sorry to say that the only thing that came up was a Mike Kiesman doing a tough man shot on youtube.  (It was posted by someone with hockey in their username, so maybe it's the same one.  I hope not.  Though it would explain why he's not playing anymore.)  The guy played 5+ years in minor pro hockey and I had to do some serious digging to yield a couple of pictures.  Here's one:

Pretty sure the only other thing I can tell you about Kiesman is that he fought a lot.  (I had only lived here in Kalamazoo for a few months when he played here and I was in 5th grade.  And not really much into watching sports.  Sorry.)

2. Dave Chyzowski has a fabulous last name. Oh, and he played with Ference on the 98-99 Kansas City Blades team.  He played 4 regular season and 16 post season games for the K-Wings in 1995.  He played a great post season, with 9 goals and 5 assists.  Somehow he managed 27 penalty minutes without getting into a fight....  Somehow I'm not sure I really want to know.  He was selected 2nd overall (draft bust!) in 1989 ahead of one of the coolest Penguins ever to don a Pens jersey, Sir Billy G, by the New York Islanders.  He did play some NHL games.

That's all I could come up with.  Which is more than I expected to find.  I did not find any goal scoring evidence (which obviously means that the goals in his stats never happened).  He's now the Director of Sales & Marketing for the Kamloops Blazers Hockey Club.  He won a gold medal for Canada at the 1990 World Juniors.

3. Roman Turek played on the 02-03 Calgary Flames team with Ference and split his team between the Dallas Stars and the Michigan K-Wings from 1996 to 98.  Things we should know about Turek?  He's a goalie.  Therefore he automatically gets cool points.  Our man, BJ played second fiddle to him for a season in St. Louis.  Except Turek wasn't doing so hot and BJ was doing his usual badassery, so BJ got 31 games that season.  And got to the starting position the next season while Turek went to Calgary.  So all of Turek's cool points just got transferred to BJ.  Woot.

Roman, I think it's the hair.  Also, look at BJ's MOVES!  I had so many fantastic picture options for him.  I thought I would refrain from showing him punching Rick DiPietro's lights out (and just talk about it instead), because that is not what he contributes the most to the team.  As you can tell, I'd rather talk about the genius that is Brent Johnson than Roman Turek.  (Shameless plug: Please, by all the that are holy, re-sign BJ every year forever and ever.  He's the best backup we've ever had.)  Oh, Turek had a few more years of solid #1 goaltending in Calgary before Mikka Kipprusoff came along and he left the NHL for the Czech Republic the following season.

4. Jamie Wright also played in Calgary with Andy and also played for the Michigan K-Wings from 96-98 and into 2000 (along with #5 on the list).  He's currently playing in Switzerland.  He played enough (just enough) in the NHL to merit a hockey card wearing a Stars sweater.  Good for him.

He most recently played for in Germany before this and they were kind enough to include his favorite drink, Guinness, on his profile.  Only in Germany.

5. Petr Buzek, as previously mentioned, has about the same team similarities as Jamie Wright. Last I can tell he's retired and most recently played in the Czech Republic.  Originally projected in the top 10 of the 1995 NHL draft, he was involved in a serious car accident in which he fell asleep at the wheel and wrapped his car around a tree.  He apparently broke both of his legs, his nose, his wrist, shattered his right kneecap, fractured his left cheekbone and cracked his skull.  He had numerous operations and ended up getting drafted in the 3rd round.  It all sounds horrible.

It sounds like a miracle that he even got to play any games in the NHL at all.

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Other notes on Mr. Ference:

He was drafted 208th overall by the Penguins in 1997, and definitely the best pick of all the Penguins draft picks that year.  

He has some a couple former Penguins as classmates: Petr Sykora and Marian Hossa.  Ben Simon (former K-Wings), Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, and Roberto Luongo are a few other names that pop out. 

He scored his first NHL goal on Nov. 13, 1999 against the Nashville Predators and had his first NHL fight a little over a year later, on Nov. 28, 2000 against Jason Allison, who, coincidentally, played for Boston at the time.  Apparently it wasn't much to write home about.  

This is the fight I'm most concerned about.  He fought Sidsters on Dec. 20, 2007 for Sid's first fight.  I'm proud to say that Mr. Sidney Crosby won decidedly.  (Please don't take that to mean that I want Sid to fight.  Because I DON'T!)

I think I may have to go cool off now...

I suppose Ference's accomplishment this past summer deserves a picture.  He did win the Stanley Cup.