The Stanley Cup finals were incredible, mostly for Bruins fans, but even people that were just hockey fans and love to see great games. The games for the most part were exciting, suspenseful, and overall entertaining. I used to watch a hockey game and be bored after about five minutes, because I didn't understand the game and the scoring was too low. I didn't understand the beauty of the game and the skill it took to play it. Like just about every other bandwagon hockey fan, I would tune in and watch a big game every now and again, but I just couldn't make myself watch more than a game or two a year. Not having played the game, I didn't understand the rules, so when a whistle blew for something like icing, I had no idea what was going on. Hockey also features players who seem to have picked out the letters for their last name much in the same way a lottery might be drawn, by picking letters out of a bag and just putting them all together.
But this year was different. I tried to jump on the bandwagon last year, but two things were working against the Bruins. The first was that the Celtics made it all the way to the finals, so they were my main focus and also the Bruins blew a 3-0 series lead against the Flyers, disappointing me during my first full series of watching. This year everything fell perfectly into place for the Bruins and my fandom. The Celtics disappointingly bowed out in the second round of the playoffs, and the Bruins played perhaps the most exciting month and a half of hockey in the history of the NHL. Three game 7's, multiple overtime games, a goalie that was locked in for a solid month, and a team that was as gritty and hard nosed as any.
I'd love to talk about some of the great plays and games from this playoff run, but I think that would be an insult to the hardcore fans of the Bruins. I'd probably butcher explanations and completely miss the ideas behind doing certain things. It would be no different than a bandwagon basketball fan trying to analyze the Celtics. I will say this though, Brad Marchand is a guy that I hope is a Bruin for a long time. In my limited time watching the team, he has become a guy that I really enjoy watching and came up big in the biggest moment with two goals in game 7. Maybe he'll never be a star, but to make an NBA comparison, he could be the Robert Horry of the NHL. Also I'd like to mention Patrice Bergeron. When I first tried out being a hockey fan about 7 years ago, Bergeron was a rookie and in the game I watched he played great. From that point forward he was my favorite player on the team and someone that I always pulled for to win a Cup. Well, Wednesday night it was a really cool feeling to see him score a goal and then raise the cup, celebrating a championship that, after multiple concussions, I'm sure he thought might never come.
Anyways, that's really all I can say about the Bruins. They completed the grandslam of championships for Boston in this decade and Tim Thomas' playoff run ranks up their with David Ortiz's run in 2004 in terms of great playoff runs by Boston athletes. For me, this ranks behind the 2008 Celtics, 2004 Red Sox, and 2001 Patriots, as far as Boston championships go, but it was no less exciting than any of those three. I guess that's the perils of being a bandwagon fan, you love to see the team win, but it's always sweeter when you're with the team through the tough times. It's why nothing will surpass that 2008 Celtics title for me, I actually started to tear up watching Paul Pierce raise that Larry O'Brien trophy, it just meant so much after watching him struggle with bad teams for so long. Those are the sweetest moments for fans, and that's why I'm so happy for those hardcore Bruins fans who got to have that moment on Wednesday night. It may have come later for them than it did for any of the other Boston sports fans, but I guarantee it was every bit as sweet.
Other Stuff:
-The sports God's have apparently decided this is their year to act, because no "bad" people seem to be winning titles this year. Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers were able to beat Big Ben, rumored rapist, and the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl. Then Dirk Nowitzki and the Mavs were able to overcome Lebron, who completely screwed Cleveland, and the Heat in the NBA Finals, and finally Tim Thomas and the Bruins were able to defeat Alex "The Biter" Burrows, Roberto Luongo and the Canucks in the Stanley Cup Finals.
-If you go back through my blogs, you'll see that I made my predictions for the NHL and NBA Finals before either started and I called both the winner and the amount of games it would take for both of them. Just saying, that's pretty impressive considering I was so far off throughout the other rounds of the NBA playoffs and that I only had watched hockey for a month.
Well thanks for reading. Hopefully with school ending these will be a bit more frequent.
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