“A Stanley Cup For The OC”

Hockey Falls Gazette Stanley Cup Final Edition

Congratulations to the Anaheim Ducks for their dominating performance in the Stanley Cup Finals, routing Ottawa in five games. For the first time in the NHL’s history, the Cup goes to Southern California. Though we predicted Anaheim would take the series in six, we were really pulling for the Senators. Brian Burke did an amazing job assembling an imposing crew in Anaheim and it paid off, though there were more than a few chippy moments (especially with “head shots”). Though Mike Fisher was every bit the emotional leader, Ottawa’s scorers were harassed to the point of becoming invisible and Ray Emery had moments of brilliance combined with lapses. Inconsistency in goal loses playoff series. But the outcome of the series had far more to do with Jean-Sebastian Giguere’s very good goaltending. The Ducks were simply dominant as a team in every phase of the game and were not to be denied. It must be an ecstatic moment for Teemu Selanne, who’s been lighting it up in the NHL since ’92 without having been on a Cup winner, to cheers to him as well.

It’s simply hard (almost insulting) for a northerner, die-hard hockey traditionalist to see the Cup being paraded about in non-hockey places like the OC, Raliegh (last year) and Tampa-St. Pete (three years ago) when three of the Original Six traditional markets haven’t celebrated the moment in generations: Chicago (1961), Toronto (1967) and Boston (1972). Hopefully hockey purists will be spared the nauseating spectacle of seeing the Beautiful People mugging before the cameras with one of professional sports’ most treasured prizes. Somewhere guys like Eddie Shore must be watching all of this and wondering, “what in the hell have they done to my game?” Take heart, Eddie, as non-competitive Cup Finals such as these are forgotten quickly, especially in warm, sunny places where people have a million other things to pursue. For the rest of us, it’s time to gear up for the draft and free agency.