Saturday, June 18, 2011

CELEBRATION IN BOSTON, RIOT IN VANCOUVER

On Wednesday, in the toughest of all professional sports playoffs, Boston defeated Vancouver in game seven to win the NHL’s coveted Stanley Cup, the oldest sports trophy in North America.

20,000 Vancouver fans packed the arena while more than 100,000 fans stood outside in the streets to view the game on giant television screens.

Ice hockey is Canada’s national pastime. The Montreal Canadiens were the last Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup, beating the Los Angeles Kings in the 1992-93 playoffs. While thousands celebrated in Boston, the crowd outside the arena in Vancouver did not take kindly to the loss. Hundreds rioted by torching cars (including police cars), tipping other cars over, smashing store windows, looting and trashing businesses, and battling the cops.

It has been 39 years since the Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup.

Boston’s achievement was remarkable. The Bruins won the first round of the playoffs, defeating Montreal in seven games. Then they defeated Philadelphia in four games, Tampa Bay in seven and finally Vancouver. They played a total of 25 hard hitting playoff games. The final seven games were among the most exciting ever.

And here is why the Stanley Cup playoffs make the NFL and NBA playoffs look like a walk in the park:

In order to get into the Stanley Cup playoffs, hockey teams have to go through an eighty game regular season schedule, much like the schedule for the National Basketball Association. But there is a huge difference between the beating hockey players and basketball players take, and for that matter, football players.

The top eight teams in the Eastern Conference and in the Western Conference of the NHL are paired-off in the playoffs. Each playoff series is a best of seven games. There are four series in the quarterfinals, two in the semifinals, and one in the conference finals. The winner of each conference gets to play for the Stanley Cup.

If every series went to seven games, the eventual winner would have played at total of 28 playoff games. However, many of the series are over in five or six games. Nevertheless, even if a series were swept in four games, the constant hard knocks taken by hockey players are almost unimaginable.

The boards that surround the ice surface of a hockey rink are unforgiving. Despite the protective gear worn by hockey players, when they get checked (blocked, for you football fans) into the boards, it hurts! Then there is the occasional hockey stick to the face. And when a hockey player gets hit by that hard rubber puck flying at close to, or over 100 mph, that really fucking smarts! You've sure got to admire the guts it takes to go down on the ice in an attempt to block an opposing player's shot with your body.

While there is much pain in basketball and football, it just doesn’t compare to the pain suffered in each game by hockey players. For the most part of the playoffs, each team will have had to play every other day. That doesn’t give much time for the pain to go away. In between each period and after each game, out come the ice packs. All together that adds up to the fact that most hockey players play hurt in every game.

The grueling NHL playoff schedule makes hockey players the toughest of all professional athletes. That is why there is no doubt that the Stanley Cup playoffs are the toughest playoffs in all of sports. And that is why the oldest sports trophy in North America is so prized by those who get their names engraved on it.

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