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ANAHEIM, Calif. - The Anaheim Ducks aren't called mighty anymore. Now they can simply answer to Stanley Cup champions. The 14-year-old Ducks captured their first NHL title with a 6-2 victory over the Ottawa Senators on Wednesday night, ending the series in five games in front of the home folks yet again. For the first time, the Stanley Cup resides in California and at the expense of Canada, which hasn't boasted a winner since Montreal in 1993. Calgary, Edmonton and now Ottawa — in its first trip since the Senators were reborn in 1992 — each had a chance the...

End of the first period, still 0 to 0

Just starting an open thread for stanley cup discussion for the remainder of the playoffs. Are the games beamed over to the other side of the world to our guys and our Canadian brethren?

Cherry takes his act south Toronto red Star April 11, 2007 Chris Zelkovich sports media columnist The CBC and NBC are preparing to foist Don Cherry on an unsuspecting American public. The Coach's Corner star and NBC analyst Brett Hull will make joint appearances on the networks during this year's Stanley Cup final. Details are still being worked on, but Cherry is looking forward to his NBC debut and doesn't plan to change a thing. "I'll just go and do what I have to do," he said yesterday in a conference call. Though he wouldn't divulge his choice of...

President Bush honored the 2006 NHL Stanley Cup (hockey) Championship Carolina Hurricanes at the White House. [I lost the b key on my keyboard with the Great Water Mishap earlier this week so if I type a b that doesn't show up, and forget to copy and paste it in, please insert it mentally into the text. In my replies I might start typing a v in place of b.] Secretary of State Rice hosted a meeting of "the Quartet" to discuss events in the Middle East. Defense Secretary Gates and General Pace held a news conference at the Pentagon....

With the just-completed hockey playoffs coinciding this year with the World Cup of soccer, as well as the overlapping basketball and baseball seasons -- also Canadian football, the U.S. Open of golf and, later this week, Wimbledon -- we are afforded a rare, eclipse-like opportunity to compare the major spectator sports at close range. Compare, and declare: There is one game that stands out as objectively, scientifically, mathematically superior to the rest. I am of course talking about "the best game you can name," le sport des glorieux, the gentlemanly sport of hockey. Let's break it down by category. The...

Wow, what a game! Carolina came out skating fast - and hitting hard. I'm glad to see Carolina win the Stanley Cup. I watched the 2002 Stanley Cup and was disappointed when they lost to the Red Wings. Edmonton played well and was a much stronger opponent than I thought! Comments or opinions (on the series or the game) - anyone?

STANLEY CUP FINAL MATCHUP TIED AT 3-3; PUCK DROPS SHORTLY AFTER 8 P.M. The 2006 Stanley Cup Final is tied at three games apiece between the Edmonton Oilers and the Eastern Conference Champion Carolina Hurricanes, with Game 7 taking place tonight at the RBC Center in Raleigh. The first 18,000 fans in attendance will receive rally towels, courtesy of Harris Teeter and Mix 101.5 FM, and Game Day Cards, compliments of OLN and Litho Industries. Puck drop is shortly after at 8 p.m. - catch all the action on NBC and on the Hurricanes Radio Network.

If the Stanley Cup is headed to Edmonton for a victory parade this week, could one of the storied trophy's next stops be 10,500 kilometres away in this baking dust bowl in the Afghan desert? The universal wish of the Edmonton-based Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry battle group is that their Oilers win Lord Stanley of Preston's silver chalice when they play Game 7 against the Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh, N.C., tonight. If the Oilers are victorious, the troops are optimistic the team will add another chapter to the Cup's colourful 113-year history by bringing it - and a few...

Tonight, on NBC, teams from the unlikely cities of Edmonton, Alberta and Raleigh, North Carolina, are playing game 6 of the Stanley Cup hockey championship – largely unnoticed except by rabid fans in those cities. The game of hockey, which requires the greatest skill set and personal courage of the players and is easily the fastest and most demanding of all team sports, has fallen on bad times despite the influx of Russian, Scandinavian and Eastern European hockey players with amazing skills that challenge the dominance once held exclusively by our Canadian neighbors to the north. The all-important television ratings...

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- The Edmonton Oilers beat three higher-seeded teams to reach the Stanley Cup finals. They weren't going out that easy. Fernando Pisani stunned Carolina with a shorthanded goal in overtime, giving the Oilers a 4-3 victory in Game 5 on Wednesday night and sending the series back to Alberta. The Hurricanes lead 3-2, but the Oilers have life. Game 6 is Saturday night in Edmonton. Carolina had the upper hand when Steve Staios dragged down Mark Recchi breaking toward the Edmonton goal three minutes into the extra period. But Cory Stillman, a star of the playoffs, made...

RALEIGH, N.C. -- After this most bizarro of playoff wins, one might have expected the Carolina Hurricanes' dressing room would have been electric with euphoria, or at the very least, giddy with relief. Instead, there was quiet introspection. "What do you see in this dressing room?" defenseman Aaron Ward asked, gesturing to the oddly silent dressing room. "It's the knowledge that we absolutely escaped with a game, 100 percent by the skin of our teeth." Bruce Bennett/Getty Images Rod Brind'Amour's winning goal in the waning seconds was his second of the game on Monday night. A few moments earlier, Rod...

The Edmonton Oilers learned Monday what the rest of the NHL found out long ago. When you’re playing the Carolina Hurricanes, no lead is safe. Rod Brind’Amour scored into an empty net with 31.1 seconds to play after Oilers backup goalie Ty Conklin misplayed the puck behind the net, giving the Canes a 5-4 win in the first game of the Stanley Cup finals. Down three goals late in the second period, the Hurricanes scored four goals in less than 14 minutes to take the lead with 9:58 to play, and that was just the beginning of a wild third...

Category 5 thriller on tap Hurricanes earn Cup berth against Oilers in homecoming of sorts John MacKinnon, The Edmonton Journal Published: Friday, June 02, 2006 The Edmonton Oilers have a Stanley Cup final date, at last, beginning Monday night in NASCAR country. And the speedy, skilled Carolina Hurricanes will be facing the Oilers in the final thanks hugely to Mike Commodore and Ray Whitney of Fort Saskatchewan and ex-Oilers captain Doug Weight, making amends for a costly penalty in Game 6 by scoring a key goal in Game 7, a dramatic, see-saw victory over the Buffalo Sabres. Not to mention...

Hurricanes win Game 7, take series RALEIGH — Wherever the Carolina Hurricanes are headed, Rod Brind’Amour will lead them there. Thursday, he brought them to the brink of the Stanley Cup for the second time in five years. With a 4-2 win over the Buffalo Sabres in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals, the Canes will host the Edmonton Oilers on Monday, four wins away from the Stanley Cup. Brind’Amour’s power-play goal with 8:38 to play put the Canes into the lead for good, completing yet another third-period comeback for a team that made a habit of them to...

EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) - Dwayne Roloson and the Edmonton Oilers protected the Canadian national anthem from another round of booing. They knocked out San Jose before the Sharks could get the series back home. Michael Peca and Shawn Horcoff scored in front of a sellout crowd of pompom-waving fans Wednesday night, and Roloson made 24 saves in the biggest game of his career as the eighth-seeded Oilers beat the Sharks 2-0 in Game 6 of the quarterfinal series. That put the Oilers in the Western Conference finals for the first time in 14 years. "No one wanted to go back...

Conference Semifinal Playoff Schedule NEW YORK - The Conference Semifinal round of the 2006 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs opens Friday, May 5, when the Ottawa Senators host the Buffalo Sabres in the Eastern Conference and the Anaheim Mighty Ducks host the Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference. The Eastern Conference series between the Carolina Hurricanes and New Jersey Devils and the Western Conference match-up between the San Jose Sharks and Edmonton Oilers start on Saturday, May 6 and Sunday, May 7, respectively. National network television coverage of the Conference Semifinals is provided in the United States by NBC and OLN...

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - What chance do the New Jersey Devils give a proposal that would give the NHL team a less demonic name? Think hell freezing over. "I can assure you the Devils name will never change, and I think there are more important things to be thinking about than something that will never happen," chief executive officer Lou Lamoriello said. "It's who we are and what we want to be." State Assemblyman Craig Stanley is taking issue with a satanic symbol representing the team, which has won three Stanley Cup championships. "This is an age where symbolism is...

OTTAWA -- The office that created the Stanley Cup believes it should still be awarded in 2005 -- no matter what the National Hockey League says. "The Stanley Cup is important to Canadians," Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson told The Globe and Mail yesterday. "It's so much more than just a sports trophy -- it's a symbol of our great love of hockey." Ms. Clarkson even has a vision of what might be possible, a vision that would be instantly recognizable by all Canadian hockey fans. She sees the Stanley Cup, emblematic of hockey supremacy, on tour this summer to players' hometowns,...

Here is the AHL response to my suggestion that they make a claim for their champion to be awarded the Stanley Cup: Thanks for writing. According to the Hockey Hall of Fame, the Stanley Cup is no longer a challenge cup; since 1947, its trustees have had an agreement with the National Hockey League to "determine and amend competition for the Stanley Cup." The agreement is in force as long as the NHL is the world's leading professional hockey league. If the NHL dissolved or terminated, the Cup would revert to the custody of the trustees. The NHL may not...

Three Canadians want to free Stanley Cup They’ve started campaign to take trophy from NHL Friday, February 11, 2005 Aaron Portzline THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Hockey fans are powerless to save the 2004-05 NHL season, as the owners and players prolong a 148-day lockout. But three men in Edmonton, Alberta, are putting up a fight for the Stanley Cup. Mark Suits, Tom Thurston and Michael Payne began a Free Stanley campaign this fall to wrest the Stanley Cup from the NHL and continue awarding it as originally intended, to the best amateur team in Canada. "We were curling one night this...

Free Stanley's mission is to make sure there are Stanley Cup playoffs this hockey season. We love the Stanley Cup playoffs and we love the Cup. We believe it is the best trophy in all of sport, and it should not be denied to the best hockey team is playing this season. If there is no NHL season the Stanley Cup should then be awarded to the best hockey team in Canada, which was Lord Stanley's original intent for the Cup. A new model for Stanley's Cup We propose that the Stanley Cup be returned to its original challenge cup...

Who knew? here are a lot of hockey "mavens" here on FR, and we all miss the game. Some of us last night were chatting about what's going on with the strike, and it developed into an interesting discussion. This thread will be a place to post info about the strike, and related issues, and vent. It will stay up, running, until the strike ends..

An NHL hockey team's idea to get more fans in the stands by offering free beer is leading to a brawl of words off the ice.The Tampa Bay Lightning will give patrons all the beer they can drink during the playoffs if they agree to purchase season tickets. Those who deposit $100 for 2004-05 season passes are eligible for unlimited free brew during the games, according to a scoreboard announcement on Saturday.But police and safe-driving advocates in Southwest Florida think the idea belongs in the penalty box. "Why attach alcohol to a season-ticket plan? It's almost encouraging people to drink...

<p>WASHINGTON -- In Scott Stevens' assessment, President Bush would likely be a centerman if he played ice hockey. President Clinton, on the other, would be better as a defenseman.</p> <p>Stevens, the Devils captain, made the remarks yesterday outside the White House, where the team was recognized by Bush for skating to its third Stanley Cup championship in the past nine years.</p>

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- The more Ken Daneyko thought about it, the more he knew the time had come. After well over 1,000 regular-season games and well over 150 Stanley Cup Playoff games, something clicked in his head that told him the next chapter of his life was calling. Being able to skate away on his own terms carrying the Stanley Cup overhead was simply the icing on the cake. The New Jersey Devils and Daneyko made it all official Friday morning at Continental Airlines Arena in a funny, poignant and emotional press conference that moved Daneyko to tears on...

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Home Sweet Home. Unbeatable on home ice during the 2003 Stanley Cup Finals, the New Jersey Devils captured the Stanley Cup Monday night with a 3-0 shutout victory over the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in the climatic seventh game of the series. The Devils soared to their third Stanley Cup in the past nine years on the strength of two goals by former Mighty Duck Jeff Friesen, a single goal by rookie Mike Rupp and the strong goaltending of Martin Brodeur, who notched his third shutout of the Finals. The Devils set an NHL record with...

One game for gloryPrediction impossible but history favours DevilsBy Al Strachan EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Tonight, the National Hockey League's winter of discontent will be made glorious summer. Glorious summer for one team. Glorious summer for the victor in that single most dramatic setting the league can offer, a sudden-death game for the Stanley Cup. But for the losers, it will be a summer of nagging doubts, of regrets over that one pass, that one shot, that one game that might have made the difference. Later tonight, either the Anaheim Mighty Ducks or the New Jersey Devils will be in ecstasy....

ANAHEIM, Calif. (CP-AP) - On the night of his 26th birthday, Anaheim goalie J.S. Giguere was finally scored on but teammate Adam Oates gave him the best present of all: a trip to the Stanley Cup final.Giguere's scoreless streak ended at 217 minutes 54 seconds but Oates scored two goals to give the Mighty Ducks a 2-1 win over the Minnesota Wild on Friday night."I don't care," Giguere told TSN about losing the scoreless streak. "All we wanted was to try and get a win we didn't care how we (got) it."Anaheim swept the Western Conference final and now moves...

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP-CP) - Anaheim goalie J.S. Giguere has made the Minnesota Wild the third team in a row to think they may never beat him.Because of it, the Mighty Ducks are only one win away from an appearance in the Stanley Cup final.Giguere made 35 saves for his third straight shutout, and Paul Kariya scored twice as Anaheim beat the Minnesota Wild 4-0 Wednesday night for a 3-0 lead in the Western Conference final."Obviously, he's playing real well," Anaheim coach Mike Babcock said of Giguere. "That's a big part of our success."The Ducks, an amazing 11-2 in the playoffs,...

<p>Granted, there is upheaval in the world and there are battles where a great deal is at stake -- life itself. All the more precious, then, the minor skirmishes on the home front that mean a great deal in a small way and remind us of how lucky we are to feel innocent hatreds, from summer to summer, at the ballpark.</p>

The Detroit Red Wings visited President Bush today as he honored their 2002 Stanley Cup championship. This is the Red Wings third trip to the White House since 1997, the first since Bush has been President. The President made brief comments to the media after the UN approved the resolution for disarming Iraq. Bush also welcomed Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Medgyessy. Enjoy your daily dose of Dubya!

By JOHN SULLIVAN, Staff Writer RALEIGH - A Wake County judge stopped six companies Wednesday from selling high-priced tickets to the Stanley Cup finals at the Entertainment and Sports Arena after state Attorney General Roy Cooper filed a suit accusing them of ticket scalping. Wake Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens issued a temporary restraining order against the companies, citing "sufficient evidence to believe that the defendants are engaged in unfair and deceptive commercial practices." Stephens said consumers would continue to suffer losses unless he stopped the companies from advertising or selling tickets in violation of state law. North Carolina...

Mayberry's revenge?All right, pundits of Detroit, that will do. You may, in the course of the Stanley Cup championship -- you know, the hockey title your Red Wings were going to win in four straight games -- feel free to make sport of North Carolina accents, or our cuisine, or the fact that we're relatively new to hockey. But when you start messing with Sheriff Andy Taylor and Barney Fife...well, as Barney said once when he was really upset with Ernest T. Bass, "Andy, when I'm riled, look out!" We read, in various accounts of the championship series -- the...

'Canes shock Red Wings in overtime The Carolina Hurricanes are blowing up quite a storm in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and the swatch of destruction continued in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals Tuesday night as Ron Francis scored an overtime goal just 58 seconds into the extra period to boost the Hurricanes to a 3-2 win and a 1-0 lead in the Finals. Francis' sixth goal of the playoffs came on a broken play that saw the Carolina captain left alone in front of Wings goalie Dominik Hasek. Francis took a pass from Jeff O'Neill and deftly tipped...

The Stanley Cup: A History of Abuse and Neglect "One of the great rules of hockey is: On the Stanley Cup, all germs are healthy."--George Vecsey, The New York Times, June 11, 1999 I got to touch the Stanley Cup. Me. I've ice skated only once in my life, I've never played a real game of hockey, I hadn't even seen a hockey game on television until high school (1990) and I didn't see one in person until January 1999. Still, I touched something that I imagine most serious hockey players don't get to touch their entire lives--the oldest...