Boston Brewin’: Some thoughts on the Cup
The Boston Bruins sent their city into a frenzy on Wednesday night when they dominated the Vancouver Canucks 4-0 in Game 7 to win their sixth Stanley Cup. Given Boston’s long sports history and its fans’ general fervor, it’s not surprising to read numerous accounts reminiscing on their personal relationships with hockey and the Bruins. The “Win it For…” thread on Sons of Sam Horn is chockablock with touching stories of parents, brothers, friends, and coaches who instilled in the forum’s posters a love for hockey and the Bruins. While not as long or quite as tragic as the Red Sox’s 86-year drought, the Bruins’ 39 years without a Cup inspired much of the same feelings in their supporters, and indeed, that thread is a homage to a similar thread in 2004.
I don’t have the personal connection to hockey or the Bruins that many others do. Not that I’m a bandwagon fan or anything—as with every sport I follow, I pay pretty close attention to the team and watch most regular season (and all playoff) games. But I never played hockey growing up, and I certainly feel like an outsider cheering along with guys and gals who got up early every day for practice and have been involved in rock ‘em sock ‘em battles of their own.*
While I can’t identify with the players who have worked their whole lives for the Cup, or the fans who wanted their Bruins to “Win it for” their die-hard father, mother, or Bobby Orr-idolizing grandfather, there are some qualities that this Bruins team embodies that everyone can admire.
Last year the Bruins became the first team in U.S. pro sports since 2004 and just the 4th of all time to blow a 3-0 series lead. While there were plenty of injuries for Boston—and Philadelphia was a very strong team in their own right (making at all the way to Game 6 of the Finals)—this was a huge disappointment, and many in Boston were calling for major changes. President Cam Neely and the rest of the Bruins’ front office stayed the course and kept the same coach, general manager, and the same core of players. At numerous points both in this year’s regular season and postseason, they faced adversity, and every time they responded. In the first round of the playoffs, they were down two games to none against bitter rival Montreal after captain Zdeno Chara had to sit out Game 2 with dehydration. They then scored the first three goals on the road in Game 3, winning it 4-2 to get themselves back in it. They were down 3-1 in Game 4 of that same series, looking at trailing the series 3-1. They won that game 5-4 in OT. In Game 2 of the next round against Philadelphia, they were down 2-0 after just ten minutes, but Tim Thomas saved the next 46 shots and Boston won in overtime. In Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals, they gave up a three-goal lead and a chance to take a 3-1 lead against the Tampa Bay Lightning, but rallied to win the next game and eventually that series. And last, but probably most important, they fell down two games to none in the final and lost one of their best players, Nathan Horton, to an illegal hit, but rallied to win that game 8-1 and from that hit on outscored the Canucks 21-4.
As much as I’m inclined to disbelieve stories of motivation and leadership, it’s certainly believable that this team learned from adversity and made the extra effort and teamwork needed to win the Cup. Clichéd narratives like this make much more sense in a game like hockey where positioning, passing, and effort are so important, where there are players whose job it is to antagonize teams into taking bad penalties, or where teams will hit another guy just to make sure he’s tough enough. In hockey, if you don’t stand up for yourself** or have a teammate to stand up for you, you won’t last very long.
The Bruins’ teamwork, determination, and effort stand in stark contrast to their opponents in the final, who crossed numerous “hockey code” lines by diving, inflicting, or attempting cheap, dangerous hits and who blamed everyone but themselves for their failures during the series. The Bruins were able to remain smart and not get drawn into any wars of words, nor did they take any retaliatory penalties, even though it certainly must have been tempting. While they weren’t saints (Brad Marchand, I’m looking in your direction), they remained focused in a situation where a less driven team (and perhaps previous versions of the Bruins) may have lost their cool. And in the end, the team was rewarded and their fans can be proud.
*I think a big reason that hockey is such an insular game is that there’s a distinct difference between watching and playing it. The hardest part of the game for me to learn was the “code” involved in fighting, chirping, and post-whistle scrums. For someone who never competed on the ice, it doesn’t make a lot of sense that it’s OK for guys to simply throw down during a game, and I’m sure I still don’t comprehend the tremendous physicality involved in the game, as I’ve never taken a check or a slash. It’s another reason why hockey in warm-weather areas may just not work, as people in Florida didn’t grow up lacing them up every day (whether on a team or on the local pond).
**A really great anecdote from Elliotte Friedman’s always-interesting column: “It was 1996 when Chara first arrived in Canada, joining the WHL’s Prince George Cougars as a 19-year-old. Stan Butler, who coached that team, said the big Slovak was challenged to a fight three seconds into his first shift. He destroyed the guy. After he got out of the penalty box, someone else dropped the gloves. Chara won that, too. During the first intermission, Butler asked him if he’d ever fought before. The answer was no.” This illustrates both hockey’s unwritten rules and the toughness of Chara and the Bruins.
***Photo via Boston.com Big Shots by Mike Blake
As I was driving around Boston earlier this week listening to the 98.5 (THE SPORTS HUUUBB!) I heard a commercial for the NHL All-Star game being played this Sunday. With only two Bruins in the game and Sidney Crosby boycotting like a child due to concussions despite sharing a locker room with the disgraceful Matt Cooke, I hadn’t been paying much attention. Then the final line of the commercial caught my attention: the teams this year would not be East vs. West, or even North America vs. The World (which I kind of liked) but picked by two captains (hometown rep Eric Staal and Niklas Lidstrom) like they were back in the schoolyard at recess. 
