While the city of Philadelphia might wage some opposition, Greater Boston can once again lay claim to being the top sports city in the US of A. With two of its three teams sitting neatly atop their divisions, and the third just a game out of first place, it’s a great time to be a New England sports fan.

First and foremost, the Patriots have rebounded from their mid-season struggles to win three straight and move into sole possession of the AFC East division lead (pending Miami’s Monday-night match-up with Chicago). Granted, the Pats’ level of competition during this recent stretch is not exactly the iron of the NFL — Minnesota, Detroit, Buffalo — but it still beats the alternative. New England has yet to prove that it can defeat the best of the league, as evidenced by its earlier losses to Miami, Denver, Green Bay, San Diego, and Oakland, but the defending champs have yet to lose to foes that they should beat. And don’t forget: as challengers go, the Vikes and Bills have proven less than formidable, yet Minnesota knocked off Green Bay previously and Buffalo annihilated Miami in both of their head-to-head meetings, so victories against those two teams were hardly guaranteed.

In addition, the Patriots’ foe in two weeks, the Jets, should not be viewed lightly in spite of the Pats’ early-season destruction of New York in the Meadowlands. The Jets, since replacing Vinny Testaverde at QB, have won six of their last eight, including victories over the Chargers, Dolphins, and Broncos.

New England has a gut-check test at Tennessee next Monday night, and that game will go a long way toward determining whether the Patriots are on the right path to post-season play. Granted, the Titans’ schedule to this point has been littered with the likes of the Jacksonvilles, Baltimores, Cincinnatis, and Houstons of the NFL world, but 8-5 is 8-5, and Tennessee has won seven out of eight en route to the top of the AFC South.

Fortunately for the Patriots, the final two games against the Jets and Fins will be played on the frozen turf at Gillette Stadium, and if they win both, they should again wear the AFC East crown and perhaps even garner a first-round bye if they manage to remember (to beat) the Titans next week.

Meanwhile, the loneliest first-place team in town continues to play the majority of its home games in front of a sea of empty FleetCenter seat cushions. The Bruins continue to astound, as the Black & Gold have upped their lead in the Eastern Division to 10 points over Ottawa heading into Monday night’s action. As they approach the halfway point of the season, the B’s have lost just four games in regulation all season, even as they continue to rotate goaltenders and tough out the close games (eight one-goal wins, three ties, one one-goal loss, and one overtime loss).

Heartbreaking losses are not part of the program this year, while stirring comeback victories are. Could it be that your Boston Bruins are the best team in the NHL right now? Could it be that they really aren’t a fluke, and are a legitimate Stanley Cup contender? The guys on the skates certainly believe it, as does their second-year coach, Robbie Ftorek, who has done an excellent job making up for several key off-season departures while molding this rag-tag bunch into a deep and potent squad. Consider: P.J. Axelsson scored seven goals all last year; this year he has six already. Mike Knuble totaled six assists in 54 games last year; this year he’s already got 12 in just 22 games. Hulking defenseman Hal Gill has never scored more than four goals in a season; he’s at three at this stage of the year, along with a +16 plus/minus rating. And Jonathan Girard has almost as many goals in his first 27 games (three) as he had in his entire 77-game career entering this season. In all, 10 different Bruins have collected at least 10 points this season, a remarkably balanced attack that has been highlighted by the emergence of youngsters Nick Boynton and Jonathan Girard, along with the blossoming of Bryan Berard, Glen Murray, and captain Joe Thornton.

Yep, it’s nearly the halfway point, and the Bruins — picked by many to revert to previous seasons’ form and miss the playoffs again — are arguably the best team in the NHL right now, with no slump in sight and even a five-point lead over the defending Cup champion, the Red Wings. Believe it.

Last, but not least, the surprising Celtics are hanging right in there, and if not for a late-game flame-out against the division-leading Sixers last Wednesday, the Celtics might also be joining their local sports brethren in boasting a first-place standing. At 13-6, the Celtics have already bounced back impressively from an 0-2 start, collecting five road wins already (it was not that long ago that five Celtic road wins in a season was cause for celebration) along with home victories against the Lakers, Hornets, Sixers, Nets, and Jazz. Yes, it’s true that Boston has yet to play (or in some cases claim wins over) teams like Dallas, Sacramento, Seattle, Phoenix, Indiana, or Detroit, but the Celtics are starting to blow out the teams that they should, and continue to play competitively on the road (as evidenced by last week’s decisive win in Orlando).

Antoine Walker and Paul Pierce continue to set the pace for the Green, and that reliance on the dynamic duo could again cost the team in the fatigue factor down the road. Nonetheless, Boston is getting unexpected key contributions from guys like Tony Delk, Eric Williams, Tony Battie, and Walter McCarty, while continuing to lament the trade that brought highly priced but dead-weight Vin Baker to the storied franchise. Watching Baker’s struggles is excruciating for Celtics fans, but in spite of the unfathomable waste of money that Baker has come to represent, he is fortunately not the focus of the offense, and Jim O’Brien’s game plans offer plenty of playmaking firepower to offset Baker’s shortcomings.

Five of Boston’s next eight games are on the Fleet parquet, and its only road tests during that stretch will be at weak sisters New York, Chicago, and Cleveland. Come January and February, when a brutal schedule will put the leprechauns to the test, we’ll be seeing whether the Celtics have the horses and continued depth to make another run to the Eastern Conference finals.

No matter what, the Celtics, like their cohabitants on Causeway Street, have managed to entertain and flourish despite losing key members of last year’s squads, and they have contributed to the area’s collective basking in the glow of having a winning team everywhere you look. And while the City of Brotherly Love can boast the first-place Eagles and 76ers along with the second-place Flyers, history tells us that it’s been nearly 20 years since Philly won a title of any kind, and that was the Sixers’ one and only NBA title. The Flyers are Cup-less since ’75, the Eagles have appeared in (and lost) only one of the 36 Super Bowls, and the Phillies have won just one World Series in their history (1980). So there.

One last glance at the off-season doings of the local nine ...

Let’s see now: we have John Henry, who is the owner of the Red Sox. Tom Werner is the chairman, and there are a couple of vice-chairmen. Larry Lucchino is the CEO and president, and 28-year-old Theo Epstein is the general manager. Dr. Charles Steinberg is an executive vice-president, and former US senator George Mitchell is a "director." In addition, we now have Mike Port as vice-president of baseball operations, with Elaine Steward also serving as a vice-president. Josh Byrnes was just signed to become the assistant general manager, while four other guys — including Carlton Fisk — are on board as assistants to the general manager. Kent Qualls is the director of baseball operations, and statistician Bill James was hired as the senior baseball operations adviser. There are three administrative assistants on the masthead, two of them of the "executive" variety. Finally, there is good ol’ Jed Hoyer, who toils as baseball operations assistant.

If you can make sense of this, I’ll give you a shot, but in the meantime, I know one thing that this skyscraping Red Sox totem pole does guarantee: a big heap o’ wedding gifts for Nomar and Mia.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com, and Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com