The Bruins’ convincing Game 5 victory over the Capitals was Jack Edwards’ final broadcast of the season. And he certainly made it count.
With NBC set to carry the Bruins’ remaining postseason games, Edwards will be joining Alex Ovechkin on summer vacation, and that’s a shame. His classic performance in the booth Sunday showed why he’s one of Boston’s all-time great homers.
The barrage of beautifully cheesy one-liners started early. During the first period alone, Edwards wondered aloud whether one of the referees was hallucinating (he said he would like to run a blood test) and proclaimed two players had “bounced off each other like executive desk toys” — one of his favorite weird similes. A Twitter search shows Edwards has used that line several times dating back to at least 2009.
But don’t fret, Edwards showered the viewers with some lyrical poetry as well: “Tuukka Rask — as calm as a mountain lake at dawn.”
Rask was Boston’s decisive advantage, stopping 40 of the 41 shots he faced Sunday.
All of the Bruins’ recent playoffs runs are peppered with Edwards’ outrageous analogies and celebratory calls — and this one is no different. Back in 2009, when the Bruins finally ousted the Canadians, we learned how a “a bunch of rag-tag farmers stood up against the greatest fighting force in the world.”
Two years later, when the Bruins defeated Montreal again, Edwards returned to the Revolutionary War. This time, he regaled with the story of how a "bunch of rowdy radicals charged out of some Boston bars, went down to the dock and dumped the king's tea into the salty sea.”
By the way, who has more fun than us?
Nobody seems to have more fun than Edwards, which is especially apparent whenever the Bruins advance in the postseason. Sometimes, Edwards expresses his exuberance through the language of war, such as when he said Patrice Bergeron’s 2013 series-winner against the Maple Leafs “ripped it out of Toronto’s hands and killed the beast!”
Then in 2019, the “Leafs were mulch again.” In other words, they were stomped.
When the final buzzer sounded Sunday, Edwards screamed the Bruins “decapitated Washington!,” which may be a sign it’s time for him to take the summer off after all.
We wouldn’t want Edwards saying anything that would prohibit him from narrating another season of Bruins hockey.