I don't really have any mindboggling hot-hand occurrences to report in this entry. Rather, I'm just using it as an excuse to display a couple of photos I took at Boston's TD Banknorth Garden, where I attended a Bruins hockey game against the Atlanta Thrashers last Saturday afternoon, while in town for an academic conference. I never got to the old Boston Garden, and in attempting to see a sporting event at the new Garden (once known as the Fleet Center), I found that the Celtics were out of town during my visit, so hockey was the only game in town.

To make this posting at least somewhat relevant to the purpose of this blog, I decided to keep an eye out at the game for what I considered the best streaky performance of the day. And the winner of this honor is...

Boston goalie Joey MacDonald. After Atlanta scored just 24 seconds into the game, MacDonald shut out the Thrashers for the rest of the first period. This may not seem all that impressive. However, Boston received four penalties in the first period, meaning that for eight minutes, Atlanta was attacking the Boston goal with an extra player. Having faced 16 Thrasher shots in the period (which seems like a lot, relative to the seven Boston fired off), MacDonald stopped the final 15.

In fact, MacDonald's performance Saturday earned him recognition as one of the game's Three Stars.

Enjoy the pictures!