Which team’s goal song will carry them to victory in the 2013 GSC?
The NHL playoffs kick off in a few hours and I really don’t think that there is a better playoff series in sports. There is nothing like playoff hockey. The tempo of the game, the physicality and the effort shown by all of the guys on the ice blows every other sport out of the water.
If you have ever been to a hockey game you know all about the goal horns that go off when a team scores. Personally, I think the horns are awesome but what I like even more are the songs that follow. Every team has their own goal song and every song, if played enough, can start to drive a visiting goalie insane.
Goal songs come in all forms. There are chants, there are up tempo songs, classic songs and songs that straight up make you want to dance. But it’s playoff time, so for 16 other teams their goal scoring days are over (at least for this season). It’s time for me to reveal my playoff bracket based on which songs are the best. I also welcome any of you to leave your comments and let me know who your Goal Song Cup winner would be.
On an incredibly EMOTIONAL night at TD Garden, Bostonians, Americans & Bruins fans sang their hearts out during the national anthem. Whether you were in the building or at home watching on television, you could not help but feel overwhelmed with sorrow, happiness and patriotism.
The NHL is approaching the deadline to cancel yet ANOTHER season.
The players are IRATE with the league’s negotiating tactics.
The “BRAND” has become an UTTER joke.
The businesses/cities are losing MILLIONS.
The fans are PISSED off and are at wit’s end.
The video below put together by Janne Makkonen, who brought to you the EMOTIONAL and EPIC “Together We Can” masterpiece, encapsulates the SORRY state of the greatest game (not for long) on the planet.
Hockey fans are the MOST DEDICATED in all of sport.
After almost four decades, the Boston Bruins are champions.
The story for these Boston Bruins coming into the 2010-11 season was whether or not they could overcome the mental damage caused by one of the biggest collapses in the history of sports. Boston had shown so much promise over recent seasons, taking the Montreal Canadiens to a seventh game before getting blown out, running wild on the Eastern Conference before a disappointing second round loss to the Carolina Hurricanes and then their heartbreaking defeat at the hands of the Philadelphia Flyers.
Many hoped that the Bruins would learn from their defeats and finally quench the thirst of a city absolutely begging to drink from the Stanley Cup after thirty-nine long years. Most of the current generation of Bruins fans were not even a thought in their parents head the last time the Bruins captured Stanley Cup glory but with the offseason acquisition of Nathan Horton, the hype of drafting Tyler Seguin and an ever improving cast of characters, expectations and hopes were at a high when Boston began their season overseas.
The first game of the season did not go exactly as planned, as the Boston defense abandoned wonder kid Tuukka Rask and the Bruins were trounced by the Coyotes. The following game, Tim Thomas stepped back between the pipes and what many thought was just a hot start turned into a record setting season for Thomas and a historic season for the Bruins.
A running theme for the Bruins throughout their entire season was redemption. Tim Thomas, after a down year due to a bad hip, was eager to prove his first Vezina trophy was no fluke. Zdeno Chara played like a man possessed, quieting doubters who believed he should be stripped of his captaincy. The individual stories were plentiful for Boston but it was how they came together as a team to find redemption that defined them.
Boston's machine like effort earned them a trip to the Finals.
Heading into Friday night’s Game Seven against the Tampa Bay Lighting, the Boston Bruins were continually reminded of all the missed opportunities in their series. They blew a 3-0 lead in Game Four that would have given them a 3-1 series lead. Their penalty kill faltered and they wasted a David Krejci hat trick in Game Six.
There was talk that Tim Thomas was getting too tired, that the Bruins defense just did not have what it takes to keep up with the Lighting and that the Bruins had the inability to play a full sixty minute. On Friday night, with both their season and a Stanley Cup Finals berth on the line, this Bruins team showed again that when it matters most, when everything is on the line, they show up to play.
Tim Thomas showed his laser like focus, Dennis Seidenberg and Zdeno Chara led a defense that always seemed to be in the right place at the right time and each offensive line launched endless waves of attacks until they finally beat Roloson, a beautiful play from Boston’s top line, that ended with Nathan Horton potting the game winning goal.
From the second the puck dropped the Bruins played like a team that was not going to lose. The crowd fed off of their confidence and roared virtually the entire game. With every blocked shot, with every big hit, with every close call the crowd felt how much this Bruins team wanted it. Any question of this team’s heart and desire to make it to the Finals was easily erased from even the most illogical doubters.
Marcel Dionne and the Los Angeles Kings pulled off an amazing upset of the Wayne Gretzky led Oilers in the 1982 playoffs.
The Stanley Cup Playoffs are set to begin tomorrow and casual sports fans should know the NHL’s postseason is perhaps the most unpredictable in professional sports.
Since the National Hockey League went to the conference format in 1994, eight #1 seeds have been eliminated in the first round.
With that in mind, here is a list of the 10 greatest first round upsets in NHL history.
The moments on this list go back to as far as 1980, ever since the Stanley Cup Playoffs began to accept 16 teams.
10. 2009 Sharks-Ducks
The President’s Trophy is awarded to the team with the best regular season record in the NHL, but has almost became a kiss of death as only seven teams have gone to win the Stanley Cup after winning the President’s trophy and five winners have been knocked out in the first round since the NHL began awarding the trophy in 1986.
The 2009 San Jose Sharks became the fourth of the five President’s trophy winners to be eliminated in the first round after losing to the Anaheim Ducks in a six-game series, following a season where the Sharks complied 117 points compared to the Ducks’ 91.
9. 1981 Oilers-Canadians
Wayne Gretzky won his first playoff series with a stunning upset of the Montreal Canadians.
In the 1981 playoffs, the 16 playoff teams were seeded 1 through 16, regardless of conference or division, so the Oilers were seeded #14 after a 74-point season and faced the #3 seed Montreal Canadians, who had complied 103 points in the regular season.
Gretzky set the tone with five assists in the Oilers’ 6-3 victory in Game 1, leading to a sweep of the Canadians in three games in the best-of-five series. Read the rest of this entry →
In honor of women’s history month, we recognize as the Sports Then and Now Vintage Athlete of the Month a woman who not only was the first woman to successfully swim the English Channel, but swam the channel faster than any person (man or woman) had done to that point in history.
Having proven her swimming ability while winning one gold and two bronze medals during the 1924 Summer Olympics, American Gertrude Ederle swam the challenging English Channel faster than any human previously when she swam from France to England in a time of 14 hours and 39 minutes on August 6, 1926.
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