2006 Stanley Cup Anecdotes, Oddities and Ironies

If you had better things to do last weekend than follow the chatter leading up to the Stanley Cup Final, here's what you missed:

• This is the first championship series between two teams from the old World Hockey Association. They began life as the Alberta Oilers and New England Whalers, and joined the NHL when the WHA folded in 1979. The Whalers moved to Carolina in 1997. New England was the WHA's first champion, winning the Avco Cup in 1972.
• Edmonton and Carolina did not play each other this season. The only other year that happened was 1995, when New Jersey and Detroit played in the Stanley Cup Final after a lockout-shortened season.
• The Oilers and Hurricanes have never met in the NHL playoffs.
• Hurricanes forward Ray Whitney was the Oilers' stickboy as a teenager, with the team when it won the 1988 and 1990 Stanley Cups. His father Floyd was Edmonton's practice goalie at the time.
• Carolina center Doug Weight spent most of his career as an Oiler, recognized as Edmonton's franchise player from 1993 to 2001.
• Several other Hurricanes have Edmonton connections, including goalie Cam Ward, who grew up in Sherwood Park, an Edmonton suburb.
• Edmonton defenseman Chris Pronger joined the NHL as a Hartford Whaler, drafted in 1993 and traded to St. Louis after two seasons.
• Oilers' forward Sergei Samsonov was originally drafted by the Boston Bruins, with a draft pick acquired from Carolina when defenseman Glen Wesley was traded to the Hurricanes.
• If Carolina prevails, Cory Stillman will be the second player to win the Stanley Cup in back-to-back seasons with different teams. Stillman won it in 2004 with Tampa Bay. The only player to do it so far is Claude Lemieux, in 1995 (Devils) and 1996 (Avalanche).
• The teams are nearly identical in average height (about 6'1"), average weight (about 203 lbs.) and average age (29).

NHL.com is rarely the place to go for analysis. But the site has a pretty good tale-of-the-tape sort of preview of the Stanley Cup Final. TSN.ca is also good, if you have an appetite for statistical detail.