Lord Stanley returns to Chi-Town

It’s hard to hate on the Boston Bruins.

Yah, I know they orchestrated that miraculous comeback from 4-1 down with half a period to go in Game 7 of the first round series against the Leafs. I know they have that rat-faced bastard Marchand. But I feel for them. I understand their pain.

And though they experienced an epic collapse of their own – up a goal on the Chicago Blackhawks with a minute and change to go, only to lose the game, and the Stanley Cup – I feel no satisfaction.

Not with Patrice Bergeron – he who scored the overtime winner in that fateful series clincher against Toronto – playing with a possible punctured lung, as well a broken rib, torn cartilage and a separated shoulder. Not with Zdeno Chara, Nathan Horton and Jaromir Jagr playing with a host of injuries that rendered them far less than 100 per cent by the time Game 6 rolled around.

Chara may be five foot 21, but he was a target the entire post season. It’s no wonder he was beaten up by the end.

Still, it was a series to remember. In fact, it was a season to remember.

It started out with two sides locked in a battle that no one wanted and no one could win and ended in a battle that was heroic in proportion with a whole bunch of winners.

Okay, not counting hockey fans that were treated to an awesome Stanley Cup Final, there was just one winner: the Blackhawks.

It was a helluva finish to an extraordinary season that only got underway in January after the league and the player’s association finally signed off on a new collective bargaining agreement. It was a year that saw teams play 48 games in a compressed 99-day schedule; a year in which the aforementioned Hawks reeled off a 24-game unbeaten streak; and a year in which Leafs made the playoffs for the first time since before the last work stoppage nine years before.

And the Stanley Cup Final, featuring a dream match-up between Original Six clubs Chicago and Boston, would offer everything we hoped for: speed, skill, stellar goaltending and some nasty physical play.

But in Game 6, with the Cup in the house, the Bruins got to feel a little of the pain the Leafs felt in the first round. Make that a lot of the pain. Up 2-1 and seemingly ready to catch a plane for Chicago for Game 7, Boston coughed up the tying goal with the goalie pulled and then, thoroughly rattled, unbelievably gave up the winner 17 seconds later.

Lights out Boston.

It was a hard way to lose for Boston, but a fantastic series for the fans and in the end, the better team won.

Next year we get a full season of this. See ya then.