It's over. It's really over.

The Stanley Cup Finals were not supposed to end this way.

I don't mean they weren't supposed to end with the Chicago Blackhawks winning, or even winning the way they did, a way that left Boston Bruins supporters to stare numbly, curse or both. The Blackhawks are fine and worthy champions, and as Michael Hurley noted, it was about the hockey, without a lot of other garbage.

"It was evident when, minutes after seeing their team suffer the most stunning of defeats, a healthy majority of the fans in attendance stayed in their seats to applaud the effort displayed on the ice. They didn't hurl cups and rags onto the ice but instead gave a rousing ovation before doing the work of any good hockey fan base and booing Gary Bettman."

No, they were supposed to end in Game 7, winner-take-all ... or even better, in overtime of Game 7, next goal wins the Stanley Cup, like when you're playing in the yard as a kid and your parents call you in for supper and you say, "Next score wins."

It was the only way the series could end. This was a series where neither team had a three-goal lead, and the only two-goal leads were as follows:

* Game 1 -- Boston from 51 seconds to 3:08 of the second period and 6:09 to eight minutes of the third period.

* Game 3 -- Boston from 14:05 of the second period to the end of the game.

* Game 4 -- Chicago from 8:41 to 14:43 and 15:32 to 17:22 of the second period.

* Game 5 -- Chicago from 5:13 of the second period to 3:40 of the third period and the last 14 seconds of the game after an empty-net goal.

The entire rest of the series was a one-goal margin or tied, and three games went to overtime.

It was thrilling stuff, between two outstanding teams in cities that are passionate about hockey, and the ratings, relatively speaking, were high.

There's only one problem ... next season won't consist of nothing but the Bruins and Blackhawks leaving their guts on the ice. Not only will there be untold nameless, faceless matchups (Columbus versus Florida in February, anyone?), but playoff hockey may be more different from regular-season hockey than any other sport's regular season compared to its playoffs.

It has to be. Not only are the teams better during the playoffs, players go out there basically every other night for two months putting their bodies through such punishment (Exhibit A, Patrice Bergeron) that if they tried it during the regular season, there wouldn't be any players left for the playoffs.

So savor what you just saw, everyone, enjoy next season where you can and get ready for another playoff ride.

 

The reason you hate Sidney Crosby

I was listening to Felger and Mazz today, and with the Bruins-Penguins series starting tomorrow, they were talking about Sidney Crosby, particularly that they see him as being easy to hate.

He dives. He whines. He's a little dirty at times. He wants all the calls, just like LeBron James. Etc, etc.

People hating Crosby is nothing new. I've seen him called "Cindy" lots of times (because if we want to insult a guy, there's no better way than by calling him a woman, right?), and the great FakeWIPCaller calls for him to be crippled every time the Penguins play the Flyers.

I just hope that all the people who hate Crosby understand that they do it not just because he's a great player, and not just because he's a brat ...

... but also because he doesn't play for their team.

If Sidney Crosby played in Chicago, they'd love him in Chicago. If he played in Philadelphia, FakeWIPCaller (and the real ones he parodies) would love him. If he played in Boston, where they love the ... let's just say sometimes chippy ... Brad Marchand, they'd love him here.

And he's be a no-good, piece-of-crap little punk in Pittsburgh.

I don't condemn this. After all, we are all hypocrites. For example, Mrs. Last Honest and I get practically apoplectic at the sight of Skylar Diggins strutting, preening and acting like she gets fouled if you look at her with both eyes at the same time, but if she played for a team we liked, we'd love her spunk and her competitive fire.

So I understand it. Just be honest about it.

Perhaps the worst kind of sports fan

"I can't believe they still boo Chara."

This was from one of my co-workers Thursday, the day after the Boston Bruins played the Montreal Canadiens in Montreal, where the fans apparently treated Zdeno Chara with the minimum high regard that they always do.

Without even getting into the fact that Chara is the captain of the Canadiens' hated rivals, I did remind her there was an incident a couple years back that might have colored fans' views of him.



Let us not forget that there was talk of prosecuting Chara for that hit.

My co-worker, her memory refreshed of Chara running Max Pacioretty head-first into a pole, could only reply with, "He didn't do it on purpose. They should just get over it!"

I don't think he did it on purpose, either, and told her so, but saying Montreal fans should "get over it" defies all logic.

The conversation caused me to think that my co-worker may be the worst kind of sports fan ... the one whose passion (and to be clear, she is a serious, serious Bruins fan) makes them not just a hypocrite (as all fans are), but blinds them to all logic so much that a rational conversation can be nearly impossible.

If we think we're better than Montreal fans, maybe we're not

I was listening to the best sports talk show in Boston, and they were talking about Zdeno Chara getting hit in the face last night in Montreal, and the crowd cheering for it.


As you might expect, Felger and Mazz were ripping the Montreal fans, and they deserved it. It was classless.

But before we all get on our high horses, be honest. If it was someone you hated, on the team you hated, a guy who injured one of your players and wasn't punished ...


 ... wouldn't you cheer? Maybe you'd realize later on that you were being an ignoramus, but in the moment ... there's a darn good chance you'd cheer.

Greg Wyshynski understands. (I was getting ready to write this post when I read this, and he and I pretty much the same mind on this one.)

We cheer fights in which one player is leveled with a right hook, the cathartic adrenaline rush filling the arena. Jay Beagle was injured quite badly in that fight with Arron Asham last year. Looking back, the reaction from the crowd and the player might seem abhorrent. In the moment — at a sporting event — it's everyone reacting to the entertainment programming they're paying to watch, and are emotionally invested in watching.
With hindsight, rational thought and human consideration will weigh on the minds of the fans that cheered Chara's injury Wednesday night. (And let's reiterate here that it was some fans in Montreal, and certainly not the majority.) If I cheer an injured player and he ends up really, really injured, I feel terrible about it. Like, "where do I send the flowers and the apology card" terrible.
But in the moment it's a different story. In the moment … sorry, I can't morally object to Montreal Canadiens fans cheering a Zdeno Chara injury, given their history and given their rivalry.

I can morally object, but I can also tell you what happened last night in Montreal would have happened almost anywhere else. And believe me, I probably cheered for each of these.

Tim Thomas doesn't want to talk right now

So, Tim Thomas treated us all to his thoughts on politics on the Facebook machine again. I won't get into the details of what he wrote -- standing with the Catholics ... "In Germany, first they came ..." ... etc., etc. -- but in the locker room, he set clear lines about what he saw as appropriate questions about his stances. (The quote is from the article linked above.)

"That's my personal life that has nothing to do with the Bruins or hockey and I'm going to remain silent," he said.

Tim Thomas is an intelligent man, a college graduate, so doubtless he knows that as a well-known, multimillionaire athlete who is willing to make his political views known in a day and age when not a lot of athletes do, people may be interested in his thoughts behind those views and how he came to have them.

And since he deems the workplace an unacceptable forum for queries about those views, surely ... again, intelligent man that he is ... he would have no problem with reporters asking about them as he's walking to his car after practice, eating at a restaurant with his family or outside the front door of his home ... you know, during that "personal life that has nothing to do with the Bruins or hockey."

Because if he didn't, someone far more cynical than I am might come to the conclusion that what he really wants to do is be able to spout his thoughts on politics without anyone ever questioning them or challenging them.