Boston Wins the Cup

[Deke]

I just wanted to say how unimpressed I was with Vancouver in the finals. If I was a fan I would be disgusted with their inability to adapt their game to a hot goalie. Perhaps nobody could have solved Thomas, but you sure aren't going to do it with permitter shots all night. Truly gutless. I could forgive that, but even worse was their total lack of drive or heart last night (not to mention stupidity). Even in the last period they played like it was an exhibition game. I think they were an embarrassment to the sport. Why? Most finals, and especially a Game 7, are at a level of such intensity that even people who rarely watch hockey are simply blown away. Last night the Canucks looked like they were in an exhibition game. They certainly deserved to lose and will soon drift back into obscurity. The West will have other more hungry teams go to the finals for years to come.

Meanwhile I truly thought Boston was too stupid and undisciplined to pull this off, but they proved me wrong in a big way last night. This kid, Marchand, now that's a playoff hockey player. That's a player who understands when they are in a Game 7. His attitude is exactly the kind of attitude that was completely absent from the entire Canucks bench and coaching staff. Congratulations Boston and good to see another Original Six team take it home.

 

[Jonhilgen]

Marchand was brilliant.  Love the scrappy rat style, he put on an exhibition last night.  That's how you play when everything is on the line.

The Canucks, and their fans should be embarrassed by the way they acted.  I didn't know that soccer players were allowed in the NHL.  Suck it up, play like a man, and stop "diving" every time you get pounded I to the boards.  Haven't seen such a lack of discipline in a team for a long time.

Congrats to the Bruins!

 

[tjbier]

Pierre (the guy between the benches) said that Marchand was yelling at Burrows to " finish the game with class" after Burrows tried to draw penalties by flopping, lol

And the fans booing Betman sooo bad he couldn't hear anything. lol

And what's up with all the loser fans rioting? That is the thing they should be ashamed of the most. Pathetic.

 

[tiralie]

Pierre (the guy between the benches) said that Marchand was yelling at Burrows to " finish the game with class" after Burrows tried to draw penalties by flopping, lol

And the fans booing Betman sooo bad he couldn't hear anything. lol

And what's up with all the loser fans rioting? That is the thing they should be ashamed of the most. Pathetic.

As a Canadian I am ashamed by the actions of the (so called) fans. Disgusting and idiotic is the least I can say, but I alas must restrain myself...sigh

For the record, I am not a Vancouver fan nor have I ever been. I do like some of the players on the team but I am very  happy that Boston won. That third goal was pure unmitigated determination and drive. Maybe now they can blow up the Vancouver team and start over.

As an aside, my son played summer hockey with Tyler Seguin so I have seen him play frequently and spoken to his mother. You do start to appreciate the years of dedication and sacrifice a family put in to help a son or daughter achieve this level of athleticism. When I watch Seguin play, I always think it's got to be an unbelievable feeling for a 19 year old rookie who was benched and scratched in this series to not only play in the 7th game, but to be on a team that wins the cup.

Tim

 

[NuggyBuggy]

This post will make me sound like a Vancouver fan.  I am not, although I did marvel at the play of the Sedins and Kesler in earlier series.  I am a sports fan who likes to see games determined by the athletes and not by the referees.

I just wanted to say how unimpressed I was with Vancouver in the finals. If I was a fan I would be disgusted with their inability to adapt their game to a hot goalie.

I don't agree.  Vancouver had tons of great chances and carried the play for much of the first part of the game, but every bounce seemed to go Boston's way, and when they didn't Thomas was just too good.  Sometimes there IS no cure for a hot goalie (see Roy, Patrick).  The first few Boston goals I don't recall that Luongo had much of a chance on.  The goal where Bergeron (?) slid Luongo into the net, the refs should have found some way to disallow that.  How is the call of a goal not reviewable ?

Then let's talk about the refereeing.  Boston, it seemed, had carte blanche to hack and slash and cross-check, after the whistle and in front of the refs all through the series.  Before the whistle, Chara seemed to never stop slashing the back of the Sedin's knees.  Whistle blows, there's either Seidenberg or Chara throwing a brutal cross check to the Canuck's best players.  How does one miss a cross-check or slash thrown by a moving mountain of a man ?  Interesting how all that went away once they were playing for the Cup.  The "unsportsmanlike conduct" penalty on Daniel Sedin at the start of game 6 when Chara totally took him down was a joke: it looked like an attempt to make sure Boston didn't go short-handed their best defender at a crucial point in the game.

Is there a single non-judged sport in which the referees can affect the outcome of a game as much as in hockey ?  

If I was the Vancouver coach, seeing how the series was being called, I would have sent in a scrub - they were certainly forced to play with a few -  to run Thomas hard late in a couple of the games that were already out of hand.  I even heard a commentator call for a "speed wobble" on Thomas.  They weren't getting the calls and they had to do something to rattle Thomas.  That was on the coach.  After the Bruin's firing pucks at Luongo during the pre-skates, the Canucks should have unloaded a bunch at Thomas.  

I was surprised at how brutal Vancouver was on the faceoffs.  It seemed like they lost 75% of them.  At some point Vigneault should have given up on Malhotra.  He couldn't win anything this series.

Anyways, the league got what they wanted, I'm sure: a Stanley Cup in one of the US' biggest cities, smack dab in ESPN's backyard (what a bunch of Boston homers they always are), instead of putting it the farthest removed point from the US' biggest media centres, in a country where hockey needs no growth.

 

[lambeater]

Yep it was a game of two goalies, Can never understand how the rules can be adjusted by refs!! would never happen in rugby. Realy ashamed of the mob mentality in Vancouver. Time to deport the Twins, maybe they could make good festool salesman! [laughing] [laughing]

Anyway life returns to normal.

Lambeater

 

[Deke]

Can you believe I didn't know about the riots until just now. For such a pretty city they have some ugly people and a weak team.

PS the Wings solved Roy plenty of times.

 

[NuggyBuggy]

PS the Wings solved Roy plenty of times.

The Canadiens won two cups with highly outgunned teams, on Roy's back.  Those two Cup years, Roy was unstoppable.  You and I could have played on those Habs teams and won a Cup with Roy behind us.  

It's easy for a team to look good with a hot goalie.  There is probably no single position more important in all of team sports than that of hockey goaltender.  A quarterback can't win the Superbowl without a good offensive line, a running back, and receivers to throw to.  Maybe a starting pitcher in baseball, but he can only start twice, MAYBE three times in a 7-game series.  But a hot goaltender can win an entire two months of playoffs for their team.  As far as am aware, goaltenders are the only players in team sport that are ever said to "steal" games for their team.  Even Gretzky on some fairly stacked Kings teams couldn't win a Cup.

I'd also offer that the Canucks may have had more quality scoring chances last night than the Bruins.

 

[flair woodworks]

I was thoroughly unimpressed with the whole thing that was the Stanley Cup Finals.  Even as a (faithful and lawful) Vancouver fan, I wouldn't have watched most of it if it were not the finals.

Congratulations to the Bruins.

 

[Brice Burrell]

As long as the Wings didn't win I'm happy, right Deke? [poke] [big grin]

 

[tjbier]

As long as the Wings didn't win I'm happy, right Deke? [poke] [big grin]

Blasphemy!  at least Cindy Crosby didn't win  [big grin]

 

[Deke]

6 trips to the finals and 4 Cups in 12 years is quite enough. The Wings need a little break between championships. It makes them mean more.

As for Roy, Detroit was an integral part in making him who he was and also in bringing him to the lowest points of his career. Nothing in sports made me happier than seeing this gifted player, yet deeply flawed arrogant moron of a human, take these falls at the hand of the Wings. The trouncing in his last ever Montreal game was administered by the Wings. Years later there was something of a replay as the Wings ended the rivalry (best ever in modern sports) and destroyed Roy with six unanswered goals in the WCF Game 7 after Roy's infamous and arrogant "Statue of Liberty" play where his stupidity and arrogance cost him the previous game 6, the series and almost certainly the Cup. What an unbelievable idiot. I smile every time I think about it. Besides everyone knows Hasek was the better goalie.

If I have ever felt pure hatred in my life it was for Roy, Forseberg, Foote and a few other Avs (but never Sakic), and yet there was never ever better hockey than a Wings Avs game or series. Nothing comes close in combining unworldly skills, physicality, brutality and intensity. Nothing. That kind of hockey would have killed a whiney little wuss like Crosby.