There were many questions surrounding the
BOSTON BRUINS entering the 2018-2019 season:
some of those questions remain, at the end of May
and the beginning of the Stanley Cup Finals...
Is this the last year for captain Zdeno Chara?
What about David Backes - is he going to be
just like last year's late season addition
who promptly retired afterwards...?
What about the youth movement:
are these young players that general manager
Don Sweeney appears to be so confident in
truly what the team needs to build upon
- going forward into 2020 and beyond?
Already the young son of Ted Donato
(Ted having been one of Don's teammates,
back in the Ray Bourque/Cam Neely/Dave Poulin
era...) was let go... He was not part of that future.
But they say the future is NOW -
and the question is, therefore, such:
can the present mix of veterans
(who have won the Stanley Cup - in 2011 -
and should have won it in 2012... 2013... 2014...)
and youngsters (such as Charlie McAvoy,
Danton Heinen, Chris Wagner, Sean Kuraly,
Brandon Carlo, Matt Grzelcyk, Noel Acciari,
Karson Kuhlman, Joakim Nordstrom
and many others)
come together quick, as a team -
a team worthy of the
Many thanks to a *DC* for this wonderful overall picture
of Boston's championships - a colorful tapestry
that only misses dozens of division titles,
conference championships
and such - but then
he would run out
of room!
It was a rough and tumble season, but they emerged as contenders eventually: challenging the top team in the league (all of a sudden; after being destroyed in the playoffs last year, by the eventual champion Caps) - the Tampa Bay Lightning. In one key match-up, the Bruins served them serious notice by beating them 4-0. The Lightning would have none of it, of course: firmly believing this was to be their year, they fiercely fought back to steal the last two games they faced the Bruins in during the regular season, expecting to meet them along the way to the Finals... But then a funny thing happened on the way to those Finals - more on that in a sec!
The Boston Bruins' chief concern was their projected first round opponent in these playoffs - the Toronto Maple Leafs! Ever since acquiring John Tavares (a signing countered by the Bruins' own Chris Wagner, around the same time) those Leafs were seeing themselves, also, in the Finals already - playing for the Cup! Don Sweeney worked to improve the Bruins just like the Leafs had improved themselves - so that their first round series would end exactly the same way as last year's: 4-3 Bruins! And as we all know it now - it worked! It worked perfectly!
The Bruins ended the regular season in up-and-down fashion: winning some big games, dropping some in inexplicable fashion. It is expected during a long stretch of 80+ games, of course...
And then they enter the playoffs - with renewed optimism. The acquisitions of Charlie Coyle and Marcus Johansson seemed more than enough to match Toronto's surge; there were only questions about it being nearly enough to match Tampa Bay blow for blow. And there was, of course, the defending champion, Washington... And maybe even Pittsburgh, to worry about...? (NAH!)
But then the unexpected happened - didn't it?
Columbus ousted the mighty Lightning; IN FOUR STRAIGHT!
Carolina outlasted Washington (earning itself quite the unflattering nickname along the way) and the defending champs were suddenly gone too - as the Canes beat the Caps in seven games!
Even the Islanders helped, surprising the Penguins in four straight too (only to be ousted, in the second round, in four straight themselves, by the Canes!)
Meanwhile, Boston took care of Toronto once again in seven games - but game 7 was noticeably easier to triumph in! Last year, it was closer; the Laffs (sorry; Leafs!) are getting further away from their lofty aspirations - not any closer to fulfilling any of them at all! It is quite laughable indeed when one thinks of it... But that is another story and their problem to have; so well-deserved, too!
Boston then neutralized the Columbus Blue Jackets in six games before sweeping the Carolina Hurricanes - earning seven straight wins to enter the Stanley Cup Finals! Wooooo!
(Hey - we beat the man... men... Hurricanemen... Hurricanara... that storm that was coming; ''THE JERKS'' - whatever you want to call it... WE BEAT THEM; OKAY? Thus to the victor go the spoils: we get to use their supporter (North Carolina native - resident, anyway) Ric Flair's WOOOOO for the Finals! And we get to use it A LOT! Flair is a fan of Tom Brady anyways; is he not? And the Patriots are the Bruins' brothers! Two of them, most particularly: Julian Edelman - and the Gronk! Champions, sticking together! As the Nature Boy used to say: ''oh, Lord, it is so hard to be humble!'' WOOOOO!)
And, now... it's suddenly a rematch of the 1969-1970 Finals?!?
Because, meanwhile, on the other side (the Western conference) there were upsets after upsets too... Last year's finalist, Las Vegas, fell early on; Dallas was never going to do much... Colorado, Nashville, Calgary (ha) and Winnipeg (hahaha) never had a CHANCE...! But San Jose seemed poised to finally break through and fulfill the EA Sports prophecy (projection, really) from 2014 and reach the Stanley Cup Finals - just to fall to the Bruins (five years ago, it meant a first and lone cup for Jarome Iginla - who's no longer playing and has joined, instead, that long list of great players that never won the darn thing; but, hey, the whole Sharks line-up, with Joe Thornton first and foremost there, will wind up joining that long list of great players who never won the damn cup! It's just the way it is... And it is, quite frankly, no big deal at all.)
Thus, as we know, the Sharks bit the dust instead of fulfilling "EA prophecy" again - falling to the ''worst to first'' Cinderella team of the year - the St-Louis Blues; THE REAL JERKS of these playoffs, if you ask me! Coached by a real goon (Terry O'Reilly was never like this: this Craig Berube schmuck reeks of another jerk I still have nightmares of: Badger Bob, who coached Pittsburgh with desperation to WIN - no matter how it gets done! Coaches like that are not good fellows: they're legalized maniacs! Bob was extreme; he dispatched Ulf Samuelsson to injure Cam Neely on purpose. Berube has stopped just short of so much: instead, he has his whole team of underachievers overachieving by playing dirty - all 12 forwards and 6 defencemen of them! But the Bruins can play physical too, when they have to; it used to be their entire identity, as a matter of fact! These days, they are a speed and finesse team though; Pastrnak, Bergeron, Krejci... those are skilled players! Even Marchand - no matter what his rep is, in the damned league! THE BRUINS ARE BETTER THAN THE BLUES - no question!)
Boston and St-Louis it is, then... just like in the days of ORR!
And we all know how that one ended... eh?
WOW - just WOW!!!
Massachusetts and Missouri have a long, storied rivalry, it turns out: Red Sox, Cardinals, Patriots, Rams, Bruins and Blues have battled it out at the pinnacle of sports on numerous occasions - Boston having won all of those confrontations with the exception of the first two - during those wretched, dreadful ''curse of the Bambino'' days! The Celtics would have gladly joined the fray as well; but there is no NBA team in Missouri! Otherwise, this would be even more lopsided...! For it was never a fair contest: a complete city, well-rounded in every area, with the top schools, world famous symphonic orchestras, major historical significance, well-known artists in all platforms there can be on top of the most noteworthy politicians of the nation and several top-notch athletes in every sport there is - versus a town from the mid-west that attracts only the rejects from everywhere else and is only renowned for a musical genre...?!? No, that was never even close! Come on!!
THE BOSTON SLAM is impossible now though; given that the Celts were dropped by the Bucks who, in turn, buckled under the Raptors (something Celtic Pride would have not done!) BUT STILL: this is unprecedented success for ONE SINGLE TOWN - and it continues on and on and on! And I always said it: ''Boston Champion'' was my soapbox, for all those years, rooting for the underdog Bruins, rebuilding Celts, coming of age Pats and cursed Sox! They were already champions to me, in the '80s (when current Bruins GM, Don Sweeney, was only their fourth defenseman! And current Bruins team president - TP, therefore? -was The Man, Cam Neely; plagued by injuries just like Bobby Orr and several other Bruins before him...) and I kept on spreading the word throughout the '90s too; but it truly is since the Patriots won their first Super Bowl and the Red Sox reversed the curse in such brilliant fashion (dare I say luminous fashion: by toppling their hated rival, the New York Yankees, after being down 3-1; and then defeating the St-Louis Cards in four straight to win their first World Series in 83 years!) that BOSTON has become THE CITY OF CHAMPIONS in most everyone's eyes. And this year (2018-2019 season, really) is the crowning achievement and absolute confirmation of that: with the Pats and Sox as reigning champions again, the Bruins have risen to the occasion too, by being crowned Eastern conference champions - and they can become the third overall champion hailing from the same city, in the same year...!
The Celtics had a good season, too; they certainly are contenders. THE SLAM was a real, strong possibility...! They got surprised by a team they underestimated, that's all; a team led by a player they could have drafted, too! (He must have been revengeful, that ''Greek Freak''... at least not a JERK, like the Canes and the Blues! Although I'd say he is, too - just not in his actions; basketball being a different sport with fouls and little to no-contact - that's the only reason why, really! But I digress...)
For it is undeniable now, even by anyone who only follows sports casually: the city of Boston is truly the city of champions - as I always have clamored so, all these years, simply knowing better than every other casual observer out there...! And Boston has in fact been dominant for much longer than that, earning several division championships and conference titles along the way in all four major sports (in North America, that is...) but most particularly for the last twenty (20) years (four times more so than St-Louis!) yes, it has been absolutely undeniable - as it can be seen in the chart below:
BOSTON
deserves to win
its seventh (7th) Cup
in the 4th major sport in town;
~ THE TOWN ~
THE CITY OF CHAMPIONS!
Of course, if there was any justice in this world,
the Boston Bruins would already have won
their seventh cup - a long, looooong time ago...
They'd be a 10-time... no... make that a
20-time Stanley Cup Champion
--- easily.
And everyone who knows the game
- truly knows the game -
knows the veracity of this statement.
