From the Boston Globe:

Vancouver coach Alain Vigneault said he is not worried.
“I don’t have to say anything to (Luongo),’’ Vigneault said. “He’s a professional. His preparation is beyond reproach and he’s going to be ready for Game 7.’’

We got a notice that my son's school is having a "Bruins' Rally" after lunch today, and the students were instructed to wear their Bruins attire. My son doesn't have any Bruins attire. As much as he follows hockey, which isn't much, he's a Sid the Kid kid.
They've had days for the Celtics, days for the Red Sox, and worst of all days for the Patriots, during which the asst. prinicipal told the kids to make Tom Brady their role model. That would be the same Tom Brady who knocked up his girlfriend and then dumped her for another woman.
In the larger picture, it would be fine with me if the school system managed to find a little time to teach in between all these special events. It seems like if someone has a successful bowel movement in that school, they call an assembly to celebrate it.

alz wrote:

Hoping Boston wins. It's rough to come into game 6 outscoring your opponent in a series 19-8 and having to look at a 3-3 tie. Good series, regardless.

The fashion in the last 24 hours is a comparison of this series to the 1960 World Series, in that every game one team wins is close, and every game the other team wins is a blowout. There's not the component of every game being won by the home team, however, since the Yankees won Games 2 and 6 at Forbes Field.


Game 1 - Pirates 6, Yankees 4
Game 2 - Yankees 16, Pirates 3
Game 3 - Yankees 10, Pirates 0
Game 4 - Pirates 3, Yankees 2
Game 5 - Pirates 5, Yankees 2
Game 6 - Yankees 12, Pirates 0
Game 7 - Pirates 10, Yankees 9

forsberg_us wrote:

I wouldn't think the people in Boston would want to make that comparison since the Pirates managed to survive the beating they took in Game 6.

The simplest explanation I can give you is we're morons.

Brace yourself ...

Better team won. I suspect if I didn't have the financial aspect, I would have been rooting for Boston. I always liked Mark Recchi.

I think if you go back a couple of rounds worth of posts, I said the Canucks couldn't win with the Sedins. What a couple of pussies. As much heat as Luongo will take for this, the Sedins deserve as much, if not more. Luongo at least showed up for a couple of games in the series.

What surprised me the most was the lack of exigency by the Canucks. I kind of kept waiting for the avalanche, but except for about a 2-minute stretch just after the midway point of the third period, the Canucks really never seemed to get going.
The Bruins probably had a lot to do with that, but I'm amazed at how the Canucks kind of seemed like they were playing a regular season game.

Artie, when I had season tickets to the Blues I noticed that sometimes, those guys would be a blur, skating all over the place, hitting, shooting, grinding, kick the other teams ass all over the ice, go in for intermission and come out like they'd never played hockey before in their lives. It really is a completely different game every period, and even every shift. That's what really made Boston's performance stand out so much. They won about 95% of the shifts, and about 95% of the loose pucks. I kept waiting for an odd man rush, a blistered one timer, some dazzling stick work with some blistering speed... It never came. Not only did it not come, but they made Mark Recchi (who is about 346 years old, remembered Gretzky and played WITH Lemieux) looking like Mario Andretti as he was blazing a water trail in the ice. This is the same 42 year old Mark Recchi who is retiring after a 22 year career in the NHL. I am coming up on 36 years old, I was 13-14 when this guy laced them up for the first time in the NHL. How on earth does this guy ever get free of a defense??

Exigency is a very good word for it. The Canucks had none. Playing at home for game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, and nothing.

A major difference between the Europeans and North Americans is that they grow up playing on different sized rinks. Watch the major World Championships or the Olympics. Those tournaments are played on international sized rinks. As a result there's much more open space and much less contact. It's very much a finesse game.

In the Stanley Cup playoffs, particularly late in series when the refs tend to put their whistles in their pockets, you have to fight for every inch of ice. Goals tend to be ugly, grinding efforts, not tic-tac-toe passing things of beauty. A lot of Europeans either aren't comfortable enough or are unwilling to put forth the effort to do what it takes in the post-season.

Does "Balls" constitute something else? If so, yes.

The American compressed rinks lead to a much more physical game in the playoffs. The wide-open Olympic brand of hockey is a lot less physical. If you want to contend for the Stanley Cup, you better be ready to take a beating, because it's coming. A lot of players do not do well in that shift of the game from the regular season where someone checking your superstar will result in a few fights. In the playoffs if you touch the puck, you're getting hit. That's just how the game is when it all matters.

I officially reached the point of celebratory saturation during lunch. The local all-news station cut into its programming to show a live shot of Tim Thomas getting his beard trimmed.
The parade on Saturday had some moments of hysteria, notably when one of the news bunnies tried to pronounce "Shane Hnidy" without spraining her tongue. Then they showed a shot of Cam Neely on one of the duckboats and she asked "Is that Tom Thomas?"
And I have yet to figure out how a group of Canadians and Europeans winning the Stanley Cup emboldens a bunch of full-grown midgets named Shawn, Shaun and Sean to flex their beer muscles and declare Boston the sports capital of modern civilization.