Today’s column will be Sox-free, as we will instead concentrate on the doings of New England’s other four major professional franchises. Three of those squads are spending most of their off-seasons utilizing pitching wedges and manicured greens, while the fourth is very much in-season, utilizing no equipment except for the manicured pitch of the nation’s 10 professional soccer stadiums.

All the teams have made some off-season noise, and while we won’t see many of them in regular-season action until September, October, or November, that doesn’t mean that what they’re doing now isn’t important or relevant.

Boston Bruins: Another autumn, another new head coach on board. It was less than three years ago that Pat Burns was sent packing by the B’s, his coaching career seemingly over a mere 30 months after he was named the winner of the Jack Adams Trophy. Burns was dismissed in favor of another fiery coach, Mike Keenan, but Iron Mike didn’t get a chance to coach a full season before he too was let go by the struggling Bruins. Robbie Ftorek was next through the in door, but the impatient Bruins’ brass showed him the out door this past spring, barely a year and a half after the former Massachusetts schoolboy star achieved his lifelong goal of coaching the Black & Gold. Now it’s Mike Sullivan’s turn, and the journeyman ex-player and former Bruin takes over the head-coaching reins as the league’s youngest coach (35) and with barely a few ounces of coaching experience at the NHL level. Everyone from his former collegiate coach to his NHL teammates to the players he coached for the better part of a year at AHL Providence speak of him in glowing terms, and the current Bruins roster — many of whom either played with Sullivan or were coached by him as Baby B’s — seem eager to play for him. Of course, that’s what they all said when Brian Sutter, Steve Kasper, Burns, Keenan, and Ftorek were hired over the course of the past eight-plus seasons. Burns got a healthy dose of redemption earlier this month, when the New Jersey team that Devils GM Lou Lamoriello gave him the opportunity to coach won the Stanley Cup in seven games over Anaheim. Sullivan will have his hands full with this current Bruins team, as it has consistently disappointed its fans for the better part of the past seven seasons. No Bruin other than Martin Lapointe is signed beyond this upcoming season for fear of a labor shutdown in the fall of 2004, and offensive stars like Sergei Samsonov and Brian Rolston remain unsigned for the coming campaign. The biggest question for the B’s is the goaltending situation, which was not resolved last spring with the acquisition of former Canadiens netminder Jeff Hackett. Boston has a number of serviceable goaltenders at the ready in case the free-agent Hackett lands elsewhere, but none has shown the ability to become a premier NHL netminder, and therefore this issue may continue to haunt the once-proud franchise this season.

Boston Celtics: The two main pick-ups for the Celtics in Thursday night’s NBA draft could help the team down the road, but right now the franchise continues to toil with the overwhelming burden that is the remaining three years of Vin Baker’s gargantuan contract. Unless Baker does the right thing and retires, the C’s will have no choice but to eat a rather large chunk of cash and proceed without him, or to pay him the nearly $50 million he will earn over the next three seasons and watch as he continues to be a non-factor in the team’s nightly efforts. Celtics fans continue to bemoan the fact that if not for the nonsensical trade that brought Baker and the now-departed Shammond Williams from Seattle for Kenny Anderson, Joseph Forte, and Vitaly Potapenko, the Green would have not only Anderson’s $9 million off the books for this season, but also the $15 million–plus that Baker will earn. One can only imagine the free-agent opportunities that Danny Ainge & Co. could have enjoyed in the coming years with that kind of loot available. Instead, saddled with the wasteful Baker contract and the potential free-agent contract that forward Antoine Walker will be looking for at the end of this upcoming season, it’s very likely that the bulk of the team’s salary-cap space will be taken up by just three players — Baker, Walker, and Paul Pierce. Pity the other nine players on the roster, who will be fighting for the financial scraps left over. First-rounder Marcus Banks will probably get the chance to step in immediately and guide the Celtics’ offense, and his defensive capabilities will be a big step up from the efforts of Anderson, JR Bremer, and Tony Delk in recent seasons. Boston’s other first-round pick, high-school center Kendrick Perkins, has been deemed a "project," which means he’s got latent talent that can be brought out under the right coaching situation, or he’ll be gone in a year. Either way, Pierce and Walker will again be expected to bear the team’s offensive burden. Unless the dynamic duo gets more help from the supporting cast (thereby managing to reduce their minutes) — and Walker rises above the 40 percent mark in field-goal percentage — then the C’s will remain at the level they’re at: just good enough to make the NBA playoffs, but without real hope of advancing beyond the first or second round. In the mid-’90s, this would have been a scenario welcomed by the FleetCenter faithful; now it’s shaping up to be a rut, and one that is unacceptable to the banner-accustomed fandom.

New England Revolution: In case you haven’t been paying attention, the co-residents of Gillette Stadium are playing a pretty decent brand of soccer down South. While the Revolution’s record of 4-3-4 would on the surface seem fairly mediocre, it’s a huge step up from the 2-8-1 mark that the team sported after 11 matches last season. From that poor start, the team jelled and finished the season with a 10-6-1 run, good enough to land the top spot in the MLS’s Eastern Division and putting it on the path to the league-championship game held in Foxborough last October. This year’s squad has the fifth-best record of the league’s 10-team contingent, but it’s already gone 2-2-3 on the road (a great improvement over past years’ efforts), and has tied or won a couple of games in the last moments of regulation or injury time, thereby cementing its status as a "never count ’em out" squad, similar to this year’s Red Sox. (Oops, Sox-free we said.) The only downside for New England is that it lost its top player, high-scoring forward Taylor Twellman, to the US National Team that recently competed in the Confederations Cup tourney in France. Without him, the Revolution suffered a blowout 4-1 loss at Colorado and a disappointing 1-1 tie at DC United. Nonetheless, Twellman is back on home soil and ready to rejoin the Revs, although he has a respiratory ailment that may keep him out of Saturday’s Gillette Stadium rematch with the Rapids. Overall, the Revolution are in better shape at this stage of the season than in past years to reach post-season play. Since no one team has emerged as overly dominant, their chances to clinch their first MLS Cup are as good as anyone’s, especially considering the struggles that defending league champ LA (2-5-6) have endured thus far.

New England Patriots: In just a couple of weeks, the Patriots will return to Gillette to begin their first training camp staged at their home stadium. Gone are the hot summer days at Bryant College in Smithfield, Rhode Island, and in their place are the two- and three-a-day in picturesque Foxborough. After their Super Bowl season of 2001-’02, the Pats enter this season as just one of many contenders in what many believe is the NFL’s toughest division, the AFC East. There is not one patsy remaining; Buffalo has made sincere efforts to improve (particularly defensively), and the Dolphins and Jets have also reloaded in their efforts to return to post-season play. The Patriots have no doubt improved their roster as well, with some significant free-agent signings (Rosevelt Colvin, Rodney Harrison) as well as potentially productive draft choices (Ty Warren, Dan Klecko) adding to the team’s depth and youth, particularly on defense. The Patriots will not be playing a Super Bowl champion’s schedule this season, but they will have the Bills, Dolphins, and Jets twice, along with five 2002 playoff teams (Philadelphia, Tennessee, Cleveland, Giants, and Indianapolis) to offset the easier pickings on the schedule (Dallas, Houston, Jacksonville, Washington). We’ll know more about this team and how it’s coming together once camp starts. In the meantime, it’s safe to say that every game will be significant this year, and the Patriots will not be able to afford any significant losing streaks or injuries if they expect to contend for a spot in the NFL’s post-season.

There you have it for the other guys. Now back to your regularly scheduled Red Sox telecast ... brought to you by Snausages snack treats for dogs.

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