2022 Stanley Cup playoffs thread

Could have tried his brother Doug (how’s it goin’, eh?).

 

Interrupt this thread for some Ovi:

 

My parents bought season tickets to the Anaheim Ducks immediately after the team was announced. They had them for about five years and then started splitting tickets with other couples. By 2003 or so I think they were splitting one pair of tickets four ways, then quit.

Four years later they got a call from one of those couples — they had a pair of tickets in the postseason but had booked a cruise under the (always safe) assumption that the Ducks would be out early. Would my parents be interested in the tickets?

They were… and that’s how my parents were in the building when the Ducks won the Cup in game 5 of the 2007 finals.

 

I had balcony seats in the Aud for 1971-72, the second year of the Sabres. They cost about $140, for 40 games (39 regular season, one exhibition). A bottle of Stroh's was $.90, a 16-oz. Utica Club might have been $1.50 at the concession stand. Even if the Sabres sucked, which they did (16-43-19), it was a helluva lot of fun for three 17-year-old high school seniors who went to every game together.

And the highlight of the season came at the very, very end. Gerry Meehan scored with four seconds to play to beat the Flyers 3-2, eliminating them from the playoffs on Easter Sunday. The place went absolutely batshit. I can still see Doug Favell cowering in the net, and Bobby Clarke breaking his stick over the crossbar.

The only Sabres moment that comes close (for me) is Brad May's Mayday goal.

No way could I ever afford anything like that again.

 

When I was in college in the early 1980’s, the Kings offered student tickets for $5 per game so we would get season tickets for $200.

I held onto my student ID and got the discount for two more seasons after graduating before I moved too far away to keep going regularly.

The friend I went with is still a season ticket holder and likes saying he now pays more for each game than we paid for an entire season.

 

If you didn’t see ESPN’s documentary on the Wings-Avs rivalry it is worth seeing
Emotional for me because I covered those series and a whole lot of memories came back

 

The footage wouldn’t be as good, but someone needs to do one on Habs Nords in the 1980s. Not only was it blood on ice, but there was so much going on. Teams owned by rival breweries. Habs were seen as the Federalist/Establishment/Anglo team, Nords were the Nationalist/Separatists. It really was like a civil war within Quebec. I think the Hunter brothers even had a tussle at one point.

 

First game of the finals I've been Abe to watch. Damn, I miss Doc.

 

I’ll settle for Kenny at this point.

 

I love watching these two teams play each other.

 

A note: the slow-motion camerawork in hockey is fucking brilliant.