Poppin' Bottles: Bruins win first Cup in 39 years

The Boston Bruins celebrated their first Stanley Cup in 39 years last night.

ESPN's Barry Melrose once said that the great thing about ice hockey is that "will beats skill."

I heard Melrose coin that phrase on a Sportscenter broadcast several years ago, and it's stuck with me ever since. More so than any other sport, the effort, determination and will of a hockey team can, and usually do, overcome the shear talent of another.

Melrose's saying rang true once again this year, as the Boston Bruins defeated the Vancouver Canucks in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals last night, 4-0, to claim their first Cup since the days of Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito.

In the interest of full disclosure, I only caught the first half of the game, as I had my weekly Wednesday night men's hockey game (another 6-5 victory, in case you're keeping track) to play in. I will defend myself by saying, if there's one viable excuse for missing Game 7 of the Cup finals, it's your own hockey game.

Anyway, after our game we headed to our usual post-game watering hole and caught the highlights and Cup presentation. I was kicking myself, because I was close to posting a little Game 7 preview yesterday, in which I would make my bold prediction that the Bruins -- yes the road team -- would pull an '09 Penguins and win Game 7 on the road.

You're probably thinking, "Yeah, whatever dude. Keep pretending you know what you're talking about."

To which I'd say, you're right. I really don't know what I'm talking about. But I'll tell you what I do know:

Throughout these Stanley Cup finals, I watched a supremely talented team in the Canucks outworked, out-hit and out-hustled by one of the grittiest and nastiest hockey teams I've seen, the Bruins.

Roberto Luongo will forever be remembered for his choke job in 
these Stanley Cup Finals. 

Make no mistake. I'm not some front-running sports clown. It pains me to see yet another Boston sports team win a title, tightening the city's stranglehold on the Title Town, USA championship belt. But I do admire how the Bruins won their first Cup in 39 years and the brand of hockey they exhibited.

As skilled as Vancouver was as a team, the Bruins exposed the Canucks with their physicality and energy, not to mention a serious take-no-mess-from-no-one attitude.

Sure, the Bruins won the Cup on Canucks' sheet of ice, but this series was over Monday night in Boston, when the B's once again knocked embattled Vancouver goalie Robert Luongo out of the game with three first period goals (on just eight shots). The Bruins would take Game 6, 5-2.

With the Cup on the line in Game 6 -- what would have been the Canucks' first championship in its 41-year existence -- Luongo & Co. laid a complete egg in Beantown. No team had won a road game this series until last night, so I guess that made it OK for the Canucks to mail in Game 6, right? Well, that was all the daylight that the blue collar Bruins needed and they sure took advantage, winning their first Cup since 1972.

Despite two shutouts this series, Luongo's Stanley Cup meltdown (17 goals allowed) made LeBron James look like a prime time performer in the fourth quarter of the NBA Finals. Forget the curious comments he made about Bruins goalie Tim Thomas, Luongo's topsy turvy play throughout these finals will be remembered for all the wrong reasons for some time.

But enough about the Canucks. It was the Bruins who won, after all. If Luongo was the ultimate goat of this series, his counterpart, Thomas, was the hero. Unlike Luongo, Thomas was stellar even in Boston's three defeats and turned in two shutouts of his own. He even set an NHL record for most saves in the  Stanley Cup finals (238).

Perhaps the coolest part of Thomas' Stanley Cup finals performance was that he became only the second American-born player to win the Conn Smythe Trophy -- the first since my guy Brian Leetch won the award with the Rangers back in 1994.

Tim Thomas made USA Hockey fans proud, becoming only

the second American to win the Conn Smythe Trophy.

How about Bruins rookie Brad Marchand? When this guy wasn't yoking up the Canucks' Daniel Sedin, he kept busy ripping twine on Luongo. Marchand had an absolute breakout series with five goals, including two in Game 7.

Or how about the job that Boston's top defensive pairing Zdeno Chara and Dennis Seidenberg did on the Sedin twins, as they limited the Swedish brothers to just two goals combined.

But beyond the match-ups, x's and o's and on-ice strategies, this series came down to differing styles and attitudes. The Bruins were bigger, tougher and meaner than the Canucks -- and both teams knew it. Aaron Rome's blindsided hit on Nathan Horton proved to be the wake-up call the Bruins needed. From that point on in Game 3, the Bruins looked like a team out for blood.

And they found it.

While I wasn't around to watch the Broad Street Bullies terrorize the NHL in the 1970s, this Bruins team seemed to play with some of that old-school nastiness that those Flyers teams are remembered for.

On paper, the star-laden, Presidents Trophy-winning Canucks had the clear talent advantage. But Boston showed that there's more to hockey than just talent. Attitude, physicality and energy can be more important than physical skill.

No, the Stanley Cup finals don't always play out like they did this year. But these finals remind us that hockey is played on a sheet of ice, not a sheet of paper.

Bruins lose Horton, then pummel Canucks in Game 3

The Bruins celebrate during their Game 3 massacre of the
Canucks

If the Boston Bruins are to erase the 2-0 series deficit they once faced against the Vancouver Canucks and win the Stanley Cup, we'll trace the team's resurgence back to the 5:07 mark of the first period in Game 3.

Bruins forward Nathan Horton was drilled by Canucks defenseman Aaron Rome after passing the puck to Milan Lucic, and lay motionless on the ice after absorbing the late, blindsided hit.

Rome was assessed a game misconduct and sent to the showers, as Horton was ushered off the ice on a stretcher and taken to the hospital. Horton, who remains hospitalized, will miss the rest of the series with a concussion. Rome has been suspended the remainder of the series as well.

The Bruins responded to the frightening moment by pounding the Canucks into submission in an overwhelming 8-1 win.


As I was watching the devastating hit live, I thought back to Game 6 of the 2003 Stanley Cup Finals, between the Devils and the (then named) Mighty Ducks. Devils defenseman Scott Stevens, who made a career out of feasting on unsuspecting forwards, delivered a similar late hit on Ducks captain Paul Kariya.

Kariya, who appeared to be knocked unconscious for a moment, suddenly came to and was helped off the ice. It was assumed the Ducks star was done for the game, having sustained such a brutal hit. But Kariya came back only minutes later and delivered the Ducks next goal -- an inspiring slap shot that beat Devils' goalie Martin Brodeur.



The Ducks won the game 5-2, but would lose Game 7. Despite losing the series, Kariya's heroics are one of the more indelible images of recent Cup Finals and while I watched Horton nearly decapitated by Rome, I wondered how the Bruins would respond.

They left no doubt.

“I think it definitely made us realize that we all needed to pick it up and step up for him,’’ Daniel Paille told The Boston Globe after the game. “He’s been great for us all playoffs. Obviously, to lose him at this point hurts us. It was nice to see us all come out.’’

After only scratching out two goals in the Games 1 and 2, the B's eight-goal output, which included two shorthanded goals, was their best offensive performance of this postseason. But perhaps more startling than the Bruins' muscle flexing was how quickly the Canucks folded in Game 3.

And the Bruins surely had something to do with that.

Known as a physical, blue collar organization, the B's out-hit the Western Conference champions, 40-31. Heck even their amiable goalie Tim Thomas got into the action, as he clocked Henrik Sedin when the Canucks star skated through his crease.

Yes, the Bruins lost one of their best forwards in Horton (17 points, eight goals in playoffs) for the rest of these Cup Finals, but they may have gained the spark they so desperately needed.

Suddenly this series feels a whole lot different than it did on Saturday night, after the Canucks took a 2-0 lead. How can it not following such a steamrolling?

Sure, the Canucks still have a 2-1 series lead, but I have sneaking suspicion that Rome's dirty hit may have awoken a sleeping giant.