Calgary Flames fans will not want to read this, but the best team won the Stanley Cup.
This may be especially galling, given the relatively tepid victory celebration put on the by Johnny-Come-Lately Tampa hockey fans for their Lightning. Once you walked a couple of blocks from the arena on Monday night, you would not have known anything remarkable happened in the city, aside from a few honking car horns.
All of the celebrating over the Lightning's first National Hockey League championship was done by the local media. Well, maybe by everybody except those at the Tampa Tribune, which had two editorials prepared -- one for a Lightning win, the other for a loss -- and ran the wrong one.
By yesterday morning, there were none of the usual signs of the aftermath of a bacchanal. Public announcements in the waiting area at the Tampa Airport congratulating the Lightning didn't even raise an eyebrow.
The losers' party, given that Flames fans pour into the entertainment district before, during and after just about any game, was far better I'm sure.
It was just as well the Cup was won in Florida. The penchant for young women in Calgary to lift their shirts in celebration would have caused a riot among scribes who had been on the road way too long.
From a hockey standpoint, though, it is better for the game that the Lightning are this season's champions. Their offensive, free-flowing game is a breath of fresh air in a league that has been stultified for too long by the disciples of defensive hockey.
One can only hope the league's tradition of imitating the style of the most recent champion will continue.
The Lightning are an offensive force that can play defence, too, a fault that was the undoing of other run-and-gun teams in recent years, notably the Toronto Maple Leafs. They do not get a lot of credit for their defensive play, but its smothering style is effective and does not extract a huge toll on the players.
By falling back and smothering rather than flattening their opponents, the Lightning are able to stay fresher longer than, say the Flames, who depend on seek-and-destroy missions.
This is an entertaining form of hockey itself, as the Flames use their speed for a fierce fore-checking game at one end of the ice and fight hard for the puck along the boards at the other. But it is a style that is demanding on players' bodies and is only effective in the comparatively short stretches of the playoffs.
In the regular season, after an abortive try at an offensive game in the early going, the Flames relied more on the neutral-zone trap, the bane of all fans of imaginative hockey.
However, thanks to their crash-and-bang playoff style, it was easier for fans to embrace the Flames as a Cinderella team than last year's long shot, the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. The Ducks remained dedicated trappers, which made for a mind-numbing final against their fellow trappers and eventual champions, the New Jersey Devils.
The Lightning, as long as general manager Jay Feaster can hang on to the players he wants, are in much better shape to repeat their run as Eastern Conference champions in the regular season and finish with a tremendous drive through the playoffs.
What was also encouraging -- despite the whining from various corners -- was that the NHL made an effort to ensure the Lightning stars could play their game in the playoffs. Those who complain the referees turned a blind eye as usual to a lot of mayhem, especially in the final game on Monday night, cannot argue that in the end the Lightning's best players were its most skilled players, not the most muscular.
Granted, there was not a lot of offence in that game, at least not until the last desperate minutes for the Flames, but Vincent Lecavalier was the best player on the ice. Brad Richards was a deserving winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP, and Martin St. Louis, the Lightning's contender for the regular-season MVP, was highly visible in the last two games.
For that kind of hockey to return to the NHL for good, those of us in the media might even be willing to suffer more of the Lightning's insufferable head coach, John Tortorella, and his exercises in condescension, also known as news conferences.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com
This may be especially galling, given the relatively tepid victory celebration put on the by Johnny-Come-Lately Tampa hockey fans for their Lightning. Once you walked a couple of blocks from the arena on Monday night, you would not have known anything remarkable happened in the city, aside from a few honking car horns.
All of the celebrating over the Lightning's first National Hockey League championship was done by the local media. Well, maybe by everybody except those at the Tampa Tribune, which had two editorials prepared -- one for a Lightning win, the other for a loss -- and ran the wrong one.
By yesterday morning, there were none of the usual signs of the aftermath of a bacchanal. Public announcements in the waiting area at the Tampa Airport congratulating the Lightning didn't even raise an eyebrow.
The losers' party, given that Flames fans pour into the entertainment district before, during and after just about any game, was far better I'm sure.
It was just as well the Cup was won in Florida. The penchant for young women in Calgary to lift their shirts in celebration would have caused a riot among scribes who had been on the road way too long.
From a hockey standpoint, though, it is better for the game that the Lightning are this season's champions. Their offensive, free-flowing game is a breath of fresh air in a league that has been stultified for too long by the disciples of defensive hockey.
One can only hope the league's tradition of imitating the style of the most recent champion will continue.
The Lightning are an offensive force that can play defence, too, a fault that was the undoing of other run-and-gun teams in recent years, notably the Toronto Maple Leafs. They do not get a lot of credit for their defensive play, but its smothering style is effective and does not extract a huge toll on the players.
By falling back and smothering rather than flattening their opponents, the Lightning are able to stay fresher longer than, say the Flames, who depend on seek-and-destroy missions.
This is an entertaining form of hockey itself, as the Flames use their speed for a fierce fore-checking game at one end of the ice and fight hard for the puck along the boards at the other. But it is a style that is demanding on players' bodies and is only effective in the comparatively short stretches of the playoffs.
In the regular season, after an abortive try at an offensive game in the early going, the Flames relied more on the neutral-zone trap, the bane of all fans of imaginative hockey.
However, thanks to their crash-and-bang playoff style, it was easier for fans to embrace the Flames as a Cinderella team than last year's long shot, the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. The Ducks remained dedicated trappers, which made for a mind-numbing final against their fellow trappers and eventual champions, the New Jersey Devils.
The Lightning, as long as general manager Jay Feaster can hang on to the players he wants, are in much better shape to repeat their run as Eastern Conference champions in the regular season and finish with a tremendous drive through the playoffs.
What was also encouraging -- despite the whining from various corners -- was that the NHL made an effort to ensure the Lightning stars could play their game in the playoffs. Those who complain the referees turned a blind eye as usual to a lot of mayhem, especially in the final game on Monday night, cannot argue that in the end the Lightning's best players were its most skilled players, not the most muscular.
Granted, there was not a lot of offence in that game, at least not until the last desperate minutes for the Flames, but Vincent Lecavalier was the best player on the ice. Brad Richards was a deserving winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP, and Martin St. Louis, the Lightning's contender for the regular-season MVP, was highly visible in the last two games.
For that kind of hockey to return to the NHL for good, those of us in the media might even be willing to suffer more of the Lightning's insufferable head coach, John Tortorella, and his exercises in condescension, also known as news conferences.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com
