The Patriots have taken their 11 wins and gone home. The Red Sox are picking up the pieces of the post-Mark Teixeira negotiations and are looking at the B list of available free agents.

Meantime, the two inhabitants of the TD Banknorth Garden just keep winning. It's money in the bank when the Celtics or Bruins pull on their jerseys and go to work.

As we close the books on 2008, the new Garden is home to the best teams in the NBA and the NHL.

It didn't take long for us to get used to the Celtics being back on top of the NBA. The team's 17th banner fit into the rafters quite nicely, and the new Big Three followed up that run with a record-setting start to this season.

They wrap up their West Coast swing tonight against the Trail Blazers in Portland after surviving their first losing streak of the season.

That's right; Doc Rivers' team is indeed human, having dropped back-to-back games to the Lakers and Warriors last week.

All of that was very bad news for the Sacramento Kings, who on Sunday night played the role of the Washington Generals to the Celtics' Harlem Globetrotters act in Boston's 108-63 win that ended that two-game "skid" with authority.

Any worries of a year-after hangover effect for the NBA's defending champions were put to rest during a franchise-record, 19-game winning streak that ended in Los Angeles on Christmas Day.

The Celtics are proving the 2007-08 season was no fluke.

Seems like the Bruins have been climbing the same mountain for more than a decade. They finally had a glimpse of the peak during last season's seven-game series playoff loss to the Canadiens.

Suddenly, the Bruins are a physical, dominating team once again.

They're riding an eight-game winning streak, their longest since 1993, as they take the ice tonight to open a home-and-home series with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

A 2-1 win over Atlanta on Sunday put the Bruins in a tie with the San Jose Sharks for the best record in the league. Boston's got three lines that can score, a rock-solid defense and its best goaltending tandem since Andy Moog and Reggie Lemelin.

The only concern is Patrice Bergeron, whose latest concussion has to worry the team's front office. But so far, the team has been able to persevere.

There was a time when we took Celtics and Bruins victories for granted, but it has been 17 years – 17 years! – since the teams won a playoff series in the same season. They have combined for a total of eight series wins since, half of them coming in the Celtics' title run last spring.

It's far too early to talk about playoff victories this season, with neither team yet at the halfway point of the schedule.

But in these cold days of winter, days made colder by the final interceptions of Brett Favre's Hall of Fame career, we can warm up to two teams that are making it feel like old times on Causeway Street.

Tom Caron is the studio host for Red Sox broadcasts on the New England Sports Network. His column appears in the Press Herald on Tuesdays.