Un-Duckin' Believable: Anaheim wins Cup

The Anaheim Ducks have done it - Stanley Cup Champions. I'm very happy for the fans in Southern California. As I've been saying to many friends via e-mail today (including my friend Eel, who was at the game last night - lucky Duck!) - it's a great thing for the sport when a team that has never captured the Cup before finally wins it.

The coolest thing about this Cup victory? Other than Captain Scott Niedermayer, who won three other Cups, no other player on the Ducks had ever won a Cup before. That's pretty amazing, and a testament to the leadership on this team, from Owner Henry Samueli to GM Brian Burke to Head Coach Randy Carlyle to Captain Niedermayer, this team has solid leadership who knew how to get it done.

This site didn't break my heart - Senators Captain Daniel Alfredsson watching the Ducks celebrate after the final horn. The Sens captain did one of the most classless things I've seen in hockey, ever, during Game 4 before the end of the second period, when he intentionally shot the puck at Ducks Captain Scott Niedermayer. He's lucky he didn't get the living stuffing beat out of him. The footage:

One of the things I love about hockey is the code that exists between the players. After the final horn last night, all of the players lined up and shook hands. You don't see that in the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals or the World Series. And all of the Ducks shook hands with Alfredson.

Fittingly, Scott Niedermayer won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the MVP of the playoffs. Everyone knows that the Stanley Cup is the coolest, most recognizable championship trophy in all of sports, but the Conn Smythe Trophy doesn't get enough recognition. It's a very cool trophy; I saw it up close when I was at the Hockey Hall of Fame in the mid-1990s. Most people probably can't even name, much less recognize, the MVP trophy in any other major professional sport in North America, but the Conn Smythe has personality. (Incidentally, the trophy is a rendering of Maple Leaf Gardens with a Canadian Leaf behind it.)

Captain Niedermayer lifts the Cup; the captain is always the first, as he's presented the trophy from NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman.

The first person the captain handed it to was his brother Rob Niedermayer; the duo are the first brothers to win the Stanley Cup together since Brent and Duane Sutter won it with the New York Islanders in 1983.

It was very cool to see Teemu Selänne win his first Cup last night. It's been a long time coming for the Finnish super star, and he's waited a long time. He broke in with the Winnipeg Jets during the 1992-93 season, when he notched 76 goals and 132 points (both are records that still stand) while capturing the Calder Trophy.

Ducks G Jean-Sébastien Giguère with the Cup. Few people deserved a championship more than "Jiggy," who led the Ducks the the Finals in 2003, only to fall short. He won the Conn Smythe that year, one of the few players on the losing team in the Finals to win the award. I can still remember the tears streaming down his face after the Ducks lost to the Devils.

This picture is awfully hard to look at - it's former Edmonton Oilers Chris Pronger (left) with Todd Marchant celebrating their Stanley Cup win. When the Oilers traded Pronger to the Ducks last year for Ladislav Šmíd, Joffrey Lupul and picks galore, it was recently revealed that Edmonton GM Kevin Lowe told Ducks GM Brian Burke, "I'm giving you a ticket to the Stanley Cup Final." Burke responded that if the Ducks made it to the Finals, the Ducks would throw in one more first round draft pick. Draft picks are nice, but there isn't a soul in Edmonton who would not rather be in a Stanley Cup parade this weekend with Pronger still on the team.

Pronger will be Public Enemy No. 1 in Edmonton for a long time for deserting the team the way he did. But, I've got to give the man his due - he had a very big impact on the Ducks. The duo of Pronger and Scott Niedermayer are the best 1-2 punch on the blue line in the NHL.

Marchant and Pronger are the 17th and 18th ex-Oilers to win the Stanley Cup since Edmonton last won it in 1990. Yay.

This is just a cool photo - it's Ryan Getzlaf celebrating with some bubbly.

Ducks Owner Henry Samueli celebrating with Stanley.

The Ducks team photo. This year marks the 19th anniversary of the first on-ice team photo after the deciding Stanley Cup Final game - Wayne Gretzky asked his teammates to pose for one in 1988 after they beat the Bruins (below left). Two months later, he was traded.

I have to admit that I'm pretty happy the Finals are over, because this marks the beginning of the offseason, and hopefully a resurgence for the Oilers. They've got a lot of work to do.

As far as the coverage, it was pretty good - NBC did a pretty nice job. I do get sick and tired of seeing and reading all of the negative press about the NHL's ratings. There are a number of reasons for the NHL's low ratings, most notably it's lame TV contract with Versus, with some occasional games shown on NBC. It's too bad the league didn't stay with ESPN & ESPN 2.

One final note to the season. I heard Don Cherry on TV in between periods the other night giving the league some body blows, and I happen to agree with him. (Below, that's me meeting Don Cherry before last year's Game Seven of the Stanley Cup Finals.) In Cherry's opinion, the league should do away with the instigator rule, where anyone who instigates a fight is given an extra two-minute minor in addition to a five-minute major for fighting, giving the opposing team a power play. Cherry couldn't be more right - when the league allowed more fighting, the players policed themselves, and idiots like Daniel Alfredsson would have the crap kicked out of him for being a classless player.

Since the NHL implemented the instigator rule, stick work and stupidity have both increased, not decreased. I'm not holding my breath that the league will change the rules, though. Just like it won't fix the stupid scheduling format, where a team plays divisions outside its conference once every three years. It's letter writing time.

All photos by AP except bottom photo
Bottom photo by R.J. Corby