Agony in Canada; A Shiny New Prize in Carolina
Tuesday June 20, 2006
From Whyte Avenue to Kandahar, the heartbreak is nearly palpable. In two consecutive seasons, Canadian hockey fans have seen an inspired underdog from Alberta take the Stanley Cup Final to the limit, only to fall achingly short. Those who remember 2004 are no doubt mourning the similarites between Calgary's game seven and Edmonton's game seven.
Once again, hockey's greatest prize goes to a city with less than a dozen years in the National Hockey League, an average temperature that never dips below freezing and annual snowfall of fewer than five inches.
The hometown coverage:
Comments
The ‘06 Oilers & the ‘04 Flames were TOTALLY different in that the Flames had expectations of going far. Whereas this years Oilers were never taken seriously as a threat- even after they squeaked in to the post season dance! YOU wrote them off like a businessman’s luunch in your first round (cough) predictions.
Actually, the Flames finished with 94 points in ‘04, one less than Edmonton had this year. So those Flames were a big underdog, just like Edmonton this time around.
But what I was talking about was the similar pattern of game 7 of the ‘04 Final and game 7 of the ‘06 Final. Both Alberta teams played on the road. They both allowed one goal in the first period and one in the second before scoring in the third. They were both second-best in the game, but had a great chance to tie it in the dying minutes, robbed by the goaltender.
And yes, I did write off Edmonton in the first round, which turned out to be about 24 games early!