ORLANDO, FLA – It has been more than a decade since fans of the Boston Bruins could watch their team play in the Eastern Conference finals and even longer since the last time the B’s were in the Stanley Cup finals. Followers of the Tampa Bay Lightning don’t have to search the memory banks as far, only having to look back to 2004 when the cup took up residence on the Gulf Coast.
As the two teams head toward game two of the conference finals Tuesday night in Boston, both fan bases have plenty to crow about and reasons to believe that this is their year for a victory parade. Only one will advance to play in the finals however so which one will it be?
Or maybe the question should be which team’s fans deserve it more? Let’s take a look at the facts.
There are no teams in the NHL that have more history than the Bruins. A member of the “Original Six” franchises that date back to 1924, the list of players who have worn the “spoked B” is a Who’s Who of the Hockey Hall of Fame: Shore. Brimsek. Thompson. Clapper. Dumart. Bauer. Schmidt. Orr. Esposito. Bucyk. Neely. Bourque. The list is endless.
Endless would also seem to describe the valleys of despair for fans in between the peaks of success. The first of five Stanley Cup titles came to Beantown following the 1928-29 season as goalie Cecil “Tiny” Thompson starred and Bill Carson scored the cup-clinching goal against the New York Rangers. The next two came two seasons apart with the first in 1939 when Mel “Sudden Death” Hill scored the series-winning goal in the third overtime of game seven against Toronto. Two seasons later, net minder Frank “Mr. Zero” Brimsek backstopped the Bruins past Detroit.
It would be another 39 years (or as long-time Boston fans may recall late radio announcer Don Earle’s call – 39 long years) before Lord Stanley’s cup again came to New England. It coincided with the emergence of a kid defenseman from Parry Sound, Ontario named Bobby Orr who single-handedly changed the way defensemen played the game. His cup-winning goal and subsequent celebratory “flight” through the air against St. Louis (defenseman Noel Picard was the one who sent Orr airborne) revived the region’s long dormant passion for hockey and spawned an renewed interest that still exists today.
The “Big Bad Bruins” won the cup again in 1972, this time on the road at Madison Square Garden against the Rangers as Orr dominated on the way to his second Conn Smythe trophy as playoff MVP. Had it not been for a rookie goalie named Ken Dryden stonewalling Boston in 1971, the Bruins could have had three straight titles and added “dynasty” to the accolades heaped on the franchise.
Sadly, that 1972 championship was the last time Bostonians tasted hockey supremacy. Since then, the Bruins have been to the finals five times and came away empty each time. In 1974, Boston fell to the Philadelphia Flyers who came in billed as the “Broad Street Bullies” with the likes of Bobby Clarke, Bill Barber, Andre “Moose” Dupont and former Bruins Rick MacLeish and Bernie Parent, not to mention good luck charm Kate Smith, whose rendition of “God Bless America” seemed to spur the team on to victory.
Twice during the late 70’s, Boston fans were tortured with finals losses to the hated Montreal Canadiens. The last two appearances in the finals came in 1988 and 1990, both times against the dynasty that was the Edmonton Oilers of Mark Messier, Jari Kurri and Wayne Gretzky. There have also been three losses in conference finals, the last two coming in 1991 and 1992 to Mario Lemieux and the eventual Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins.
Bruins fans know what they like in players and are loyal to the end. How loyal? During the 2000-2001 season, realizing that Raymond Bourque was at the end of his career after toiling in Boston for more than two decades (and giving up his number 7 so that it could be retired for Phil Esposito – a move that made Bourque an immortal in the eyes of the fans), the fans begged General Manager / President Harry Sinden to trade him to a contender. Sinden sent him to Colorado where the Avalanche won the Cup, giving Bourque his elusive ring and setting off celebrations in Boston that rivaled those in Denver. (In a classy move, during his day with the Cup, Bourque brought it back to the Boston area to share with the Bruins fans who had supported him and the team all those years.)
The Tampa Bay Lightning may not have the history of their opponents, having been born in 1992, but they have known plenty of ups and downs. The franchise started its life in the Tampa Expo Center (where players could fish out back before getting ready for home games) before moving to the cavernous Thunderdome (now known as Tropicana Field where the Tampa Bay Rays play baseball) in St. Petersburg. Between the locals learning the game and the northern transplants, the Bolts became a popular ticket, especially during the franchise’s first foray into the playoffs at the end of the 1995-1996 season. That season brought the team’s first ever playoff win, a 2-1 overtime win at Philadelphia.
It would be seven years and a move across the bay to downtown Tampa and the St. Pete Times Forum before the Lightning made the post-season again in 2003. That year provided another first – the franchise’s first post-season series win over Washington on Marty St. Louis’s goal in the third overtime.
One season later, 2003-2004, everything came together for the Tampa franchise in a run that took the Bolts to the finals where they upset the Calgary Flames in a thrilling seven game series that had fans from coast-to-coast in Florida cheering loudly. It was fitting that Dave Andreychuk, Tampa’s captain who was brought in to provide veteran leadership in what would be his next-to-last season as a player, skated his one and only lap around the ice with the Cup hoisted high in front of an adoring home crowd.
The 2004-2005 lockout zapped much of the goodwill the Lightning had built up with the championship. Two more trips to the playoffs quickly followed but the success of 2004 was not duplicated as the team did not get further than the conference quarterfinals.
Then the roof nearly caved in. Palace Sports and Entertainment, the owners of the team, wanted to get out of the hockey business. A proposed deal with Absolute Hockey Enterprises headed by Doug MacLean crashed during the 2007-2008 campaign. Finally, OK Hockey LLC, headed by movie producer Oren Koules and former player turned real estate mogul Len Barrie, stepped in and purchased the team. Their first decision was to hire Barry Melrose away from ESPN to be head coach – a position he hadn’t held in at least a decade.
Even with budding superstar Steven Stamkos being selected as the overall number one draft pick in 2008, the Lightning slid backwards both on and off the ice. Melrose lasted less than 20 games before being replaced by Rick Tocchet. Nothing seemed to work and the Bolts plummeted back into the NHL basement where they had been the year before. The team was in financial difficulty and with the fan base walking away in droves, all looked lost.
Part way through the 2009-2010 season, Jeffrey Vinik, a very successful asset manager from Boston (where he is a minority owner of the Red Sox and also sits on the board of the Liverpool Football Club of the English Premiere League), purchased the franchise. He immediately lined up a team to manage the franchise including hiring Tod Leiweke as Chief Executive Officer and luring Steve Yzerman away from the Detroit Red Wings to be General Manager. Yzerman in turn brought in Guy Boucher, a young but highly successful coach in Canada amateur and minor league pro hockey, to be the bench boss.
Vinik’s commitment to both the on-ice product and the status of the organization within the Tampa Bay community have begun to restore the luster to the franchise. He put a renewed emphasis on the fans and the game experience along with being active around town via numerous philanthropic gestures. Boucher’s work behind the bench and Yzerman’s keen personnel skills have elevated the team beyond the dark days of the previous two seasons. The fans are coming back and the St. Pete Times Forum is as loud as it was seven years ago.
So which fans deserve to hold the Stanley Cup more? If you go with the length of time between cups, clearly Boston is the choice. If surviving turmoil is your determining factor, Tampa Bay wins hands down. Of course the real winners may just be the thousands of New Englanders who now live in Central Florida because either way, a team they know very well will play for the Stanley Cup.
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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