During a 49 year title drought after their Stanley Cup win in 1961, until their next one in 2010, the Chicago Blackhawks played in and lost 5 finals series.
After last night’s (2-1) road win at Tampa vs the Lightning, in game one of the 2015 finals, the team is heavily favored to win a third straight finals series, all in the past six seasons.
Additionally Chicago at one point had lost 16 of 17 road finals games until Patrick Kane’s “reviewed” Stanley Cup winning goal at Philadelphia, in game six in 2010.
Including that game, “Chi” has won 4 of 5 road finals games, including the Stanley Cup clinchers in 2010 and 2013, the latter in Boston.
The Blackhawks’ (2-1) win at Tampa vs the Lightning last night, was similar to their Cup clincher at Boston in game six in 2013.
Last night Chicago scored two goals in just under two minute’s time, the first with less than seven minutes to play, to overcome a one goal deficit and gain the victory.
In 2013, in a truly dramatic display (last night’s was not exactly “chopped liver”) the Blackhawks scored two goals in a seventeen second span in the last eighty seconds to overcome a one goal deficit in a road sixth game and win the Stanley Cup.
The Stanley Cup finals get started tonight in Tampa Bay, with the home team Lightning (Tampa Bay) hosting the Chicago Blackhawks.
The Blackhawks are seeking their third title in six seasons, after not winning the title for 49 years from 1961-2010.
The Lightning won in their only Stanley Cup final appearance, defeating the Calgary Flames in 2004.
Current Blackhawks’ player then with the Lightning, Brad Richards, won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the outstanding player of the playoffs that season.
In the Lightning’s last three semi- finals or this final appearance, the three Lightning opponents were the three teams their broadcaster Phil Esposito played for in the NHL: the Boston Bruins, who beat the Lightning in the 2011 semis, the New York Rangers, whom the Lightning just beat in this year’s semis and now the Chicago Blackhawks.
Recently I had occasion to see a wonderful play called “Mallorca” at the Abingdon Theatre (312 West 36th Street) in New York City.
The five person cast, consisting of four men, all but one of whom have not communicated nor in any way gone “deep” with his emotions, and one woman was superb.
Written by Sheldon Bull (“Newhart”) and directed by Donald Brenner, the extremely humorous play took me on a journey back and hopefully forward, about expressing what is truly important.
The cast in order of appearance: L.J. Gasner “Stan,” Brian Russell “Leo,” Steven Hauck, “Arthur”, Rory Scholl “Julius” and Lisa Riegel as “Roberta.”
Without giving much away, I related to not being able to open a bag of chips and Gasner came back to the topic beautifully.
Additionally, I became even more outraged as to how expensive tickets to (my words) a meaningless NBA regular season game involving at least one bad team, have become.
Unlike the case with the basketball, “Mallorca” is more than worth the cost, and proved an entertaining and extremely insightful experience.
For ticket info, click here.
Currently both New York baseball teams (the Yankees and Mets) are in similar positions, playing fairly well and right in the thick of divisional races with a slow pace.
Each team won on the West Coast last night a week after each played and swept simultaneous three game series at home.
The rarity last week saw the Yankees sweep the Kansas City Royals and the Mets sweep the Philadelphia Phillies winning Monday and Wednesday afternoon and Tuesday night games.
Last night the Yankees won against the fine Seattle Mariners’ pitcher Felix Hernandez. They are but two games over .500 at (27-25) but that is good enough for a one game lead in the A.L. East
The Mets won in San Diego last night and have a (29-23) record which puts them just percentage points behind the Washington Nationals, who have a (28-22) record in the N.L. East.
A person could be ready to say “back up the Brink’s truck” were he or she to “go against” ESPN (and other networks) hockey analyst Barry Melrose’s predictions.
He almost always picks the favorite, but it is not his poor record on predictions nor the fact his picks lack imagination that draws my criticism, though that does not place him in high esteem.
It is because he so often does not get the facts correct.
In “building” his New York Rangers to win game seven prediction, which of course was wrong, he said the Rangers were (5-0) facing elimination so far in the playoffs. In fact, they were (4-0).
This is typical of unbeatable and unbearable ESPN, which rewards so called style over substance. Melrose has lived off his one good coaching season (The Montreal Canadiens beat the Melrose coached L.A. Kings in the final round). He flourishes, no matter his inaccuracies.
The Chicago Blackhawks got two first period goals from their great captain Jonathan Toews and beat the Anaheim Ducks (5-3) in game seven, at Anaheim, to advance to their third Stanley Cup final in six seasons.
They will face the Tampa Bay Lightning. The first game of the finals series is in Tampa on Wednesday night.
The city of Chicago again won a semi-final from Anaheim having done so 30 years ago (Bears beat the Rams in the NFC title game/NFL semi-final) and ten years ago (the White Sox took the Angels in the ALCS/Major League Baseball semi-final).
After those semi-final wins, the Chicago teams went on to win it all. The Bears devouring the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl and the White Sox winning their first World Series in 88 years, sweeping the Houston Astros.
The Tampa Bay Lightning advanced to the Stanley Cup finals for the second time in the franchise’s 22 season history, posting a second straight road (2-0) victory at New York vs the Rangers, in game seven last night. (The Lightning won game 5 in New York by the same (2-0) score).
Thus the Lightning became the first of the three Tampa Bay area teams to advance to the finals for the second time.
The Lightning defeated the Calgary Flames in 7 games in the 2004 Stanley Cup final. Both the NFL Buccaneers, who won the Super Bowl/final vs the Oakland Raiders and baseball’s Rays, who lost the World Series to the Philadelphia Phillies, have made one finals appearance in their sports league.
Lightning goaltender Ben Butler joined Patrick Roy (2002) and Tim Thomas (2011) as the only goaltenders to record shutouts in seventh games twice in the same playoffs season.
Roy won 4 Stanley Cups, but the 2002 Colorado Avalanche lost in the semi-finals. However, Tim Thomas’ Boston Bruins won their first Stanley Cup crown in 39 years in 2011.
Coincidentally, Thomas’ 7th game shutouts were first vs the Lightning in the semi-finals and then vs current Rangers’ coach Alain Vigneault’s Vancouver Canucks, in the finals.
The Lightning are a stellar (7-3) on the road in this year’s playoffs and would open the finals on the road if Anaheim (Ducks) win tonight’s game seven vs the Chicago Blackhawks.
If the Chicago Blackhawks prevail tonight in Anaheim, the Lightning will host “Chi” in game one.
Stanley Cup Finals start Wednesday
The great NBA player and executive Jerry West turned 77 yesterday, one day after the Golden State Warriors, for whom he is an executive, reached the NBA finals for the first time in 40 years.
That is fine and so are Jerry’s exploits as a player, coach, general manager/executive for the Los Angeles Lakers. My comments today are more personal.
He is one of my favorite players and as was the case with Mr. West, at a key age, I was shy, and I shot basketball(s) alone, even as darkness emerged.
Unlike Jerry, I was never a player on an organized team and my shooting is only great when I crumple up a piece of paper and shoot it successfully into a waste paper basket of some width.
Perhaps sadly for both of us, each of us suffered greatly when “our” beloved Lakers lost playoff series–some truly gut wrenching–and were denied NBA titles. (Jerry won but one title as a player and his long time great teammate Elgin Baylor never “titled.”)
Also, it seems some of those losses have “stayed” with Jerry and that makes me sad. First off, he has won numerous titles, though only once as a player. That 1971-1972 team won 33 straight games at one point and is truly one of the greatest teams in sports’ history.
So I say to Jerry and myself, let’s relish the victories he truly had and ones I need to both appreciate, but also put in perspective. I feel being a fan, especially one as intense as I was, could be a big negative.
Yet there is something compelling and important about taking another’s example, in this case the effort, greatness and the perhaps out of whack intensity of Jerry West, and trying to improve one’s own life.
My father worked hard and remarked how I did not appreciate victory, but horribly lamented defeat. Jerry, truly a part of that overblown competition, not me as my father correctly pointed out, was the same way. Again, sad!
Thus let me recall with fondness being in the Lakers’ dressing room after the team repeated as NBA champions in 1988 and interviewing/congratulating then Lakers’ general manager Jerry West.
The Boston Celtics had repeated as NBA champions in 1969, their incredible 11th title in 13 seasons, so many won vs Jerry and Elgin Baylor.
Additionally, another of my favorites, Wilt Chamberlain, and his teams, were ousted so often by the great Celtics in earlier playoff rounds and twice in NBA finals, including the one in 1969.
I reminded Jerry that “our” Lakers’ (108-105) score/victory in game 7 that night in 1988 vs a gritty Detroit Pistons team that would itself repeat as NBA champions, winning the next two titles, was eerily similar to the Celtics’ (108-106) game seven win, when the NBA last had a repeat champion, 19 years earlier in 1969.
I do not remember Jerry’s response but both of us surely thought about West’s 42 point performance in defeat, playing on one good leg in that final game 19 years earlier.
Two undeniable good things in sports are comradery and good sportsmanship.
That helps explain that the fact Celtics’ players John Havlicek, Bill Russell and Larry Siegfreid all expressed their love and admiration for Jerry after that game is indelibly etched in my mind.
The New York Rangers are (7-0) in home game sevens in their history. Tonight in another game seven home game, this one vs the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Rangers are bidding for a second straight NHL finals appearance.
There has been at least one time that the Rangers did lose the decisive, maximum numbered game at home.
That was 40 years ago, when an upstart New York Islanders team won the decisive third game of a preliminary series at the Rangers’ Madison Square Garden home, to take the series two games to one.
That year, the Islanders began a span in which they at least made the NHL semi-final round nine times in ten seasons. They won 4 straight Stanley Cup titles from (1980-1983) and made five straight finals appearances from (1980-1984).
Coincidentally, on that same night in 1975 (it happened to be a Friday as is today) current Tampa Bay Lightning broadcaster Phil Esposito, a great NHL player, and his Boston Bruins team, were also eliminated at home in a decisive, maximum numbered game three of a preliminary series by the Chicago Blackhawks.
The Blackhawks will play a decisive 7th game of their semi-final series in Anaheim vs the Ducks tomorrow night.
Both NBA semi-finals series ended after a total of just nine games (one more than the minimum). In the NHL, both semi-final series will total fourteen games (the maximum)– just the second time this has happened since 1964.
Last night, while the NBA Golden State Warriors finished off the Houston Rockets in five games, the NHL Chicago Blackhawks forced a seventh game of their “semi” vs the Ducks Saturday night in Anaheim.
Unfortunately in all probability, Kenny Albert and not Mike Emrick will be the lead NBC broadcaster.
Kudos to Albert on his energy traveling back and forth to different games, but give me “inspiration”/talent, not “perspiration”/ just showing up, any day, as Emrick, a gifted play by play man, is in my opinion “night and day” better than Albert.
Mike Emrick
Andy B Sports 