The Canucks are looking very flat tonight. What is it with them and Game 5's? Every game 5 this post-season has been the same thing...the Canucks playing horribly!:rolleyes:

It is currently 2-1 San Jose with 13:12 left in the third period.

And Vancouver is going to the STANLEY CUP FINALS!!!!!!

A goal by Kevin Bieksa in the 2nd overtime ended the game. I can't take anything away from the Sharks as they played a great series(except for the 7-3 game) and gave the Canucks a battle!

Luongo played great, particularly in both OTs, as did Niemi. It is a shame that the game ended on a weird bounce, but I am happy that the bounce went the way of the Canuck's.:):yes::)

Both Thornton and Kesler played great, especially due to the fact that they were both playing injured. You could tell that the refs put the whistles away after the third period as there were a few that weren't called(for both sides).

Congratulations to the Vancouver Canucks, and I hope that you will face Boston in the Finals!:)

Tampa Bay 5, Boston 4. That was a tough one to watch.

I still think the Bruins will pull it out. Game 7, Friday, in Boston.

:no: Boston should have finished them off in game five instead of letting them hang around my Penguins did the same stupid thing Tampa should have been sent home to the golfcourse a long time ago
They should deem the no souther team should be allowed in the playoffs to start with
Playing hockey in 90 degree temps is just wrong
:yes: Penguinsfan Jen

Well, you already know that I agree with you on everything above, although I would go further and say that there should be no southern teams so that your rule doesn't have to apply.

It's supposed to hit 90 in Boston on Monday, and in the 80s over the weekend, by the way.

I think a couple of positives can be taken from the game. One, Roloson let in 4 goals on 20 shots, so he is still shaky in net. Two, David Krejci scored a hat trick, and is on a tear.

I think Boston will prevail. Game #7 is in Boston, so the Bruins should be able to feed off the energy of the fans.

Two hours and fify-four minutes until the puck drops! The suspense is killing me.

Be sure to post in this thread once the game is over so we know the suspense wasn't successful.;)

Last night i had the most horriable nightmare
Tampa wins the Stanley Cup
:eek: Penguinsfan Jen

I'm exhausted just from watching the first period. Even my television is sweating bullets!

Wow, what an awesome hockey game.

Vancouver, here we come!!

Congratulations, Boston. I wanted Boston to win and they came through in a hard fought, exciting, and fast game.

I think Vancouver will have the advantage in the finals as they've had more time to rest throughout the playoffs. Luongo is playing great. Tim Thomas must be feeling quite tired by now. He hasn't had a game off since the playoffs began. Still, it's not going to be easy to get a puck past Thomas. Nor will it be easy to get past Luongo.

Then again the only prediction that has worked out for me so far this year is that Boston will win the East.

Thankfully your nightmare won't come true (at least this year).

While I am rooting for Vancouver to win, it should be an excellent series to watch! I can't wait for it to start.:)

I assume you are rooting for Vancouver because it is a Canadian team. If so, I remind you that I rooted for Canada in the Olympics (and made that known here). Just as I believe that Canada's connection with hockey merits and Olympic Gold Medal, so too does Boston's status as an Original 6 team merit a Stanley Cup and being rooted for when one's own team is not a contender.

I went back to look at my predictions for this past season and I had predicted that Boston would beat Montreal in the playoffs, not that Boston would win. Still, I'm glad that Boston did win the East after eliminating Montreal.

Is there still hockey going on? I just spent the last week in Oklahoma City for work. As far as your thread about which cities don't deserve hockey. This place should be the top of the list. Lots of hotels don't have Versus, but you couldn't even get it in the bars. All televisions were set to watch the OK City Thunder vs Dallas Mavericks. As far as US cities where they should add a team, how about Seattle? If would be a natural rival for Vancouver, and Seattle is home to the first US team to win the Stanley Cup. The Seattle Metropolitans won the cup in 1917 and were in the finals two other years.

To accept Seattle would subvert my basic criterion, which is that there must be a place for kids to play pond hockey (outside, obviously) when they're growing up. That is the basis for the hockey culture that exists in the deserving cities. That being said, I could be persuaded to accept Seattle because of its longitude, for a price. ;)

I just had to share this picture of Zdeno Chara (6'9") and Martin St. Louis (5'8").

Winnipeg has an NHL team again. The Thrashers have been sold and are moving to a city that deserves an NHL team. Apparently the new name is still unknown, but I hope that the owners keep the Jets name. It may not be original, but it is well known.

Happy dance as another southern hockey teams folds and moves north where they should have been to start with

Anywho ILA i dout Jets will be in the running mainly due to the Coyts still own that name and still have the Jets records and states as part of there teams history so the Jets are a piece of hockey history and will not return to Winnipeg
:cool: Penguinsfan Jen

Definitely a happy dance, Jen, and for the reason that you mentioned.

From what I've been able to find out, the NHL owns the Jets name and logo and not Phoenix.

I didn't know that, i just assumed that Phoenix retained the the rights to the Jets name and logo

Ithink Jets would be most peoples choice but Phoenix may raise a fuss about them naming them the Jets
:yes:Penguinsfan Jen

How's this for fast? On the "Winnipeg" page on Wikipedia:

"On May 31, 2011, Mark Chipman of True North Sports & Entertainment announced the NHL's return to Winnipeg with the purchase of the Atlanta Thrashers from Atlanta Spirit, LLC, May 2011."

Can the Qubec Lightening be far behind
and can Phoenix become the Hartford Roadrunners

:innocent: Penguinsfan Jen

I don't see the return of the NHL to Hartford any time soon.

^^^^OK how about the Halifax Roadrunners?
:yes:Penguinsfan Jen

Now that I'd like to see! I like the way you're thinking, Jen!

I love Halifax -- it's one of my favorite cities in North America. And there should be an NHL team somewhere in the Maritime Provinces. But I think they'd get a more Halifax-appropriate name. Perhaps the Halifax Citadels? (The Citadel is a famous fort in Halifax.) Or the Halifax Mariners?

Bob Ryan, a sports columnist for The Boston Globe, has a great piece in today's paper about Boston and its love affair with hockey, how despite decades of disappointment the Bruins were never too far from the top of the city's affections, and how the game has changed. It's a fun read.

Deep roots have kept us rooting


By Bob Ryan

The Old Guy was patient. The Old Guy knew you?d come around.

Yup, Old Man Hockey knew that deep down in your heart, lodged in the depth of your psyche, there resided a little round rubber disk, right next to that little white ball with the red stitches. Football and basketball have had their moments of glory during the past two decades, but Old Man Hockey knew that the two sports permanently embedded in the local DNA were baseball and, yes, hockey.

Old Man Hockey watched in sadness as other sports elbowed him to the side. But he had faith. He knew you just needed an excuse to reacquaint yourself with a sport that has extremely deep roots in these here parts.

And you have. There was only one dominant conversational topic in our town last Saturday morning.

?Did you see the game???

?Oh, what a game!??

?Best game I?ve seen in years!??

?Love that Tim Thomas!??

?Can?t beat that playoff hockey!??

Or variations thereof.

It has been 21 years since the Boston Bruins have even played for the Cup, and it has been 39 years since they actually won it. So much has changed, on and off the ice. Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito are in their 60s. Even Ray Bourque has hit 50.

There was no music blaring in the Old Garden, and not much in the way of video, either. There was just John Kiley, bringing the Bruins out to ?Paree?? and rousing the crowd during languid moments with such tunes as ?Mexican Hat Dance.??

When Johnny ?Chief?? Bucyk skated around the Garden with Lord Stanley?s Cup held aloft following that 1970 triumph, there may have been six people sporting Bruins garb. Friday night, at least 75 percent of the 17,565 breaking every decibel record in the newer building were wearing something black and gold, none of it cheap. Being a fan now calls for a far more substantial financial commitment than it did in Ye Olden Days. And we?re not even talking about the price of tickets.

The teams are surely different. The last Bruins team to win a Stanley Cup was led by a pair of extraordinary all-time talents who played a far different game. Phil Esposito led the league with 133 points (which sounded good until Wayne Gretzky came along). The incomparable Bobby Orr augmented his annual Norris Trophy with 117 points. The Chief, who played the regular season at a spry 36, had 83. Six other Bruins had more than 50 points.

That kind of firepower doesn?t exist anymore, anywhere. Milan Lucic was this team?s only 30-goal scorer, sharing the team scoring lead at a rather modest 62 points with David Krejci. Patrice Bergeron had 57 points. Nathan Horton had 53. So much for 50-point men.

But these guys know how to D-up, as we say in basketball. The Bruins led the Eastern Conference in fewest goals allowed with 195, and that?s the way coach Claude Julien likes it. The 1-0 Game 7 conquest of Tampa Bay represented Julien hockey at its finest. The top-to-bottom attention to detail was extraordinary. There were no sloppy passes, no careless puckhandling, and no letdown in forechecking.

It was all backed up by Thomas, whose circuitous route to the 2011 Stanley Cup finals included watching the entire 2010 playoffs from the bench. Troubled by a hip injury that would require offseason surgery and facing competition from young Tuukka Rask, he did not play a second in the playoffs a year after winning the Vezina Trophy. Now he has been nominated for a second Vezina Trophy and he is heading to his first Stanley Cup finals. As Mr. Shaughnessy likes to say, you can?t make this stuff up.

The last Bruins team to win a Stanley Cup was easy enough to like, consisting, as it did, of so many A students. But this bunch is lovable more for its collective strength and its downright vulnerability than for its stars. These guys study hard, but most of them are lucky if they can come up with a B. Only when they pull together can they get a lot done.

Well, yes, there is a star aside from Thomas. It?s hard not to notice Zdeno Chara when he?s on the ice. The 6-foot-9-inch Slovakian plays about 7-4 when you throw in his skates and his stick, which enables him to execute poke checks when the play has emanated from Downtown Crossing. He won the 2009 Norris Trophy, and he has received his third nomination this season.

It is a team with little margin for error, and it has arrived in the Cup finals with a large stain on its r?sum?. Most teams love power plays. Some thrive on them. The Bruins would be better off if they could adopt a football policy and refuse penalties. They perform much better at even strength.

They set a record in the opening round against Montreal by winning in seven games despite scoring no power-play goals. They enter the finals having gone 5 for 61 (including a five-on-three goal) on the power play. They were fortunate indeed in last Friday night?s Game 7 with Tampa Bay: no penalties were called.

But Bruins fans have learned to love them despite their flaws because the game they are playing is hockey and certain elements remain constant, especially in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Your father loved hockey, and so did his father, and maybe even his father.

Detroit fancies itself ?Hockeytown??? What a laugh. There is only one ?Hockeytown?? in America, one town where the NHL has been going on since 1924, one town where high school hockey has an eight-decade tradition, one town where you can stage an annual college hockey tournament featuring four high-quality teams located within a 2-mile radius.

The Bruins are right in the center of this hockey consciousness, and have been since the ?20s. The first great NHL superstar was Eddie Shore, and guess where he played all those years? We had the great ?Kraut Line,?? champs just before WWII, and, of course, we had the Big Bad Bruins. We had Ray Bourque and Cam Neely.

Granted, it has been a frustrating 21 years for Bruins devotees. There has been a lot of teasing, and little fulfillment, since the 1992 team advanced to the conference finals, only to be slapped around by the mighty Penguins. Only a year ago, the Bruins suffered the most humiliating series loss in NHL history.

But you knew there was something good going on when this team pulled off a 6-0 road trip from Feb. 17 through March 1. That told you this team had an inner resolve other recent Bruins teams lacked. They showed that resolve again after losing Games 1 and 2 at home to Montreal. And here they are, playing the game you and your forefathers have always loved with spunk and heart.

Old Man Hockey knew you?d come around. All you needed was a reason to care.

I believe Bobby Orr and company really sparked Boston's love affair with hockey and that affair is still going strong

:yes: Penguinsfan Jen

The Red Sox yesterday changed the start time of Saturday's game from 7:00 pm to 1:00 pm so everyone could get home from the ballpark in time to watch the Bruins!

Wow! What a hockey game. Unfortunately, the outcome wasn't what I had hoped for, with Vancouver scoring with 18.5 seconds left in the third period.

By the way, Alex Burrows clearly bit Patrice Bergeron at the end of the 1st period, and it's hard to imagine a suspension not coming his way.

The video doesn't lie:

http://www.sbnation.com/nhl/2011/6/1...up-finals-2011

Tonights game was how i hope all the games go, i can careless who wins i just want to see a good game and not a blow out i loved seeing Bostons big guy doing a cartwheel on the ice and i think the player biteing another player is funny
All in all tonights game was enjoyable
:yes: Penguinsfan Jen

Well, other than the actual outcome at the end, I could not agree more with the sentiment bolded in the quote from Jen above.

I honestly feel a little bad for the Atlanta fans. The NHL bends over backwards to try and protect the Coyotes(which is a waste of money as we all know) yet nary a word is uttered from the NHL to try and protect Atlanta.

Everyone knows that when one watches a hockey game finger food is one of the treats served at bars and homes everywhere.;):lol::p

He may get a fine, but I don't see him getting suspended for it(due to it being the Cup finals). It was bushleague on his part, but it's not like it hasn't happened before(didn't someone nibble on Savard's fingers a couple of years ago?). I can see (perhaps) biting if someone is trying to stick their fingers down your throat, but it looked like Burrows moved his head to perform his bite. Not cool.

As to the game, it was a very good game(from what I saw online as I was working). I think that Vancouver carried the play the back half of the third period and Boston was on their heels a little, but Tim Thomas was being Tim Thomas. He will deservedly win the Vezina this year. Even though it was a low scoring game, it was still full of excitement.

The damned refs better not try to dictate the flow of the game like they did in game #1. That was ridiculous!:rolleyes:

As the old saying goes, "Money talks."

I could not agree with you more.

Are you forgetting about Jim Balsillie? He tried to buy more than one NHL team and the league kept shutting down his plans. Balsillie's plans involved buying a team and moving that team to Hamilton. He had the money to buy the team, but because he wasn't on the approved list he could not buy anything.

I like to think that Jim Balsillie's rejection by the NHL was because of his membership in the Trilateral Commission. :lol:

Actually, come to think of it, perhaps the rejection of Balsillie was the first salvo in what I hope will become a generalized worldwide backlash against Blackberry (made by his company, Research In Motion) and all hand-held PDAs!

I'm pretty sure that that's not going to happen.

I'd still like to see Balsillie buy Carolina (the team and not the states) and move them to Hamilton.

I'm in favor of anyone buying Carolina and moving it north, even if it has to be state-by-state until it gets somewhere, anywhere into the "hockey zone" I have described in previous posts.

I hope the Phoenix Coyotes forever stay in the desert and rot. The citizens of Glendale can pay $30,000,000 and more each year to cover the Coyotes' losses because the NHL was too stubborn to sell the franchise and have it relocated to a city where it would actually make money instead of being a drain on the whole league.

This is the kind of mindless belligerence that results when you add ice or water or both to your glass of Jameson. Drink it straight, my friend! ;)

Oh, but I was drinking it straight.

My nastiness comes from the derogatory comments that some players made it looked like the team might move to Winnipeg. Some of those players come from the middle of Buttfuck, Nowhere, but they could only make nasty comments about the possibility of moving to Winnipeg. They are a bunch of spoiled arrogant jerks who make far too much money and a have a highly overrated opinion of their own self-worth.

Perhaps those players took one to many puck shots to the head, i know if i was a hockey player i'd rather play in a city who's people love and enjoy hockey rather then a city where they only care about the next WWE smackdown

:eek: Penguinsfan Jen

So, Jen, are you saying they are "pucked up" ? :lol:

Ilya Bryzgalov comes to mind. So you would rather play in Russia than Winnipeg?

Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out, jackass.:rolleyes: