Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Conference Final Craziness

This is something that has been bugging me for years. This is a thing that seems to happen yearly in the NHL. The playoffs are long, and rough, and we all love to see who is going to play in the Stanley Cup Finals. The weird thing being that now, teams seem to not want to touch the trophy of their conference championship. The announcers love to play up "the curses" and after this year's playoffs, I reached my boiling point. I didn't write about this at the time because I was in the process of moving and just didn't have the time to, but now I am.

Who the hell came up with this? People talk about it like it has been around forever! The only problem is that this is something that seems to have just randomly shown up! I'm not certain from where, but somebody mentioned Eric Lindros in regards to this, but again, I'm not sure. At any rate, I am ready to debunk the incredibly stupid statement, yes, stupid statement, that Pittsburgh managed to break this supposed curse. I mean, you see in that clip that Toews didn't even touch that thing. So, here we go.

1995: New Jersey Devils. Scott Stevens lifts the trophy, Devils win the cup in 4 games. (7:03 in the clip)
1996: Colorado Avalanche Joe Sakic lifts trophy, Colorado wins the cup in 4 games. (1:04 in the clip)
1997: Detroit Red Wings Steve Yzerman lifts trophy, sweep the Stanley Cup.
1998: Detroit Red Wings Steve Yzerman lifts trophy again, and again, the Wings Sweep the finals.
1999: Dallas Stars. Derian Hatcher does not lift the bowl, but he does touch it. This is the first time I've ever seen a player not lift it.
2000: New Jersey Devils. Once again, Stevens lifts trophy, Devils win the Stanley Cup.

I couldn't find any other clips earlier than 1995 on You Tube, but something tells me that not too many other people went along with this beforehand. So, my plea to other teams is to let this particular "superstition" go. We've all seen, now, that for years, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the team that raised their conference championship trophy. They often won the cup in rather convincing fashion. So please, shut up Mike Milbury, Pittsburgh did not break the curse because there never was one.

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