2013 NHL regular season

[Enforcer]

Hehe, awesome .gif.

[Harold Baines]

Hehe, awesome .gif.

[jon abbey]

wow, tied up! this has been a great series, I have actually seen quite a bit of it.

[jon abbey]

holy shit, Chris must have just exploded. off to SoSH!!!!!!!!

[jon abbey]

17 seconds apart

[walto]

What an awesome fucking finish that was. I still can't get my head around it.

[Noj]

What an awesome fucking finish that was. I still can't get my head around it.

Ditto.

[Harold Baines]

Just sat there dumb-founded. Good of Kane to say Crawford deserved the Conn Smythe. He was unconscious tonight, some unbelievable stops on point-blank Boston chances.

A lot of Stub Hubbin Hawk fans in the building at the end.

The only thing missing was Chris Berman shouting "Oh, No!" when those last two goals went in. Yes, Tony Graffanino, we remember.

[Enforcer]

I MISSED IT! Of all the weeks of my life to have stuff get in the way of me watching sports... I missed a ton of the NBA Final, too. I couldn't even post here from my mobile phone. FUCK.

Harold, Congratulations, my man. What a season for your boys. They proved they were the best team in the NHL for sure. Props to crawjo for calling it early, early on, too! They just won the hardest trophy to win in all of pro sports. Enjoy the parade and a nice summer of contentment!

Now, the dimmed lights of the offseason. At least it won't be as long as last year's.

[crawjo]

Once they scored the tying goal, I kind of expected them to score again very quickly. That's been their identity all season...when the chips are down, they produce relentless pressure. Like I said, they are the best team in hockey. Given their talent and youth, they should win more Stanley Cups in the next few years.

[Enforcer]

Well, it's always tough after a Cup to keep your talent. The Hawks will have to deal with cap space issues like everyone else. But their core is very young and that's the main thing. It's a matter of building around that.

[Harold Baines]

So this other site I frequent for the White Sox has its other boards. There was some complaining about ESPN framing the Hawks' victory in terms of "biggest Boston chokes." To which some wag wrote (and this is especially for jon and walto):

"Boston fans are the biggest bunch of crybaby bandwagon douchebags walking God's green Earth. When they weren't doing well, they were cursed, and woe are the downtrodden fans of Boston sports who have to endure year after year of not having a title, and why do we even bother, I'm just gonna go kill myself, etc. Then the Patriots won in 2002. Then the Red Sox won in 2004. And it just became an avalanche from there. It was as if someone had flipped a switch, because they instantly became the most arrogant pieces of garbage. All of a sudden, Boston is the Mecca of sports fandom, and **** YOU NEW YORK, WE'RE BETTAH, and you seemingly can't walk three steps without bumping into some Chad wearing khaki shorts, sandals with socks, an Ed Hardy shirt and an upside down visor who has a fresh Patriots tattoo because he's always mad loved Boston. They make me sick. "

[jon abbey]

honestly every city and team is like that, the more a franchise wins, the more fairweather fans show up, and the dumber the fan base gets.

this was actually the beginning of the end, though, Sept 2011 ESPN magazine cover:

[jon abbey]

Red Sox hilariously collapsed right after that, then were dreadful last year, and are only bouncing back now.
Celtics had one last run in them, but blew a 3-2 lead to Miami in the conference finals last year, went out in the first round this year, and now Rivers is gone.
Patriots got close twice, but lost to arguably inferior teams both times in the Giants and Ravens.
and the Bruins will always have last night (I would say they were lucky to make it out of the first round, and they were, but Chicago was lucky to get by Detroit too).

[walto]

I don't hate the Bruins, but for (assholish) me, it was important for Boston not to have some kind of miracle fucking thing that could be attributed to God caring about the"Boston Strong" or any of that bullshit. After that Toronto choke, I really didn't want Boston winning the cup (even if I really grew to like Mike Emerick--I was rattling off "feathered, geared, nudged, tickled, stroked, lofted, looped, etc. etc. yesterday. I'm not sure why they bother with play-by-play for a TV broadcast, but he's kind of awesome).

Anyhow, FWIW, I'm the usually the same way in politics: I vote AGAINST people I hate.

[Enforcer]

Emrick is great. He actually lives in Michigan, I think St. Clair Shores. He used to do the play-by-play for the New Jersey Devils, commuting from Michigan for all the games, kinda crazy. Anyway, my favorite hockey crews all work for CBC, but Emrick is in the same class, IMO.