The statue of Bobby Orr outside the Garden honors not just the greatest hockey player who ever laced ’em up, but also the greatest moment in Bruins [team stats] history.
And even if you weren’t around on May 10, 1970, you know exactly what that statue represents: Orr has just scored the goal that clinched the Stanley Cup for the Bruins, and now, in that moment of frozen bronze, and thanks to an after-the-fact trip from the St. Louis Blues’ Noel Picard, No. 4 is shown flying through the air, arms extended, mouth agape.
There will be no “Bobby Orr moment” tonight at the new Garden when the Bruins host the Vancouver Canucks in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals. To be sure, there may well be a Boston victory — the home-ice thing in this series suggests as much — and there may well be a walkoff hometown hero. But win or lose, tonight’s home ice becomes tomorrow’s sewage.
Win or lose, no more hockey will be played at the Garden this season. If the Bruins lose, everyone goes home; if the Bruins win, everyone makes one last trek out to Vancouver for a Wednesday night all-or-nothing Game 7 finale.
It’ll be fascinating to see how the story lines play out if the Bruins do not complete their journey by winning the Stanley Cup. It’s likely that older Bruins fans who’ve waited 39 years for a Cup will have more frustration and anger to vent than the younger ones. Hey, if you’re 18 years old it doesn’t make much difference if the Bruins last won a Cup in 1972, 1992 or 2002.
But that’s all for later on. For now, there is this last chance for Bruins fans to fill up their lungs and let loose with whatever’s on their minds, and it’s impossible not to believe that’s a factor here. Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes, one important reason the home team has an advantage in these games is that it gets the final say on line changes. As Bruins coach Claude Julien put it yesterday, “It’s smoother when you have the last change. There is less changing on the fly and you get the better matchups, and that’s for sure.”
But is that the only advantage? Line changes? This much we know: Both buildings have been rocking during this series, and for reasons that aren’t entirely related to each city’s fans rooting for the current editions of their teams.
It goes beyond that. For Bruins fans, it’s the 39-years-without-a-Cup thing, no doubt, but also a yearning for the Bruins to be invited to sit at the same championship table with the Patriots [team stats], Red Sox [team stats] and Celtics [team stats]. A Stanley Cup victory for the Bruins would mean a total of seven championships for this neck of the sports woods in less than 10 years — three by the Pats, two by the Red Sox, one by the Celtics and, dare it be said, one by the Bruins.
(Idle thought: If the Bruins were to win Games 6 and 7, how cool would it be for a photo op to be set up in which fans could pose with the Stanley Cup, the Pats’ three Lombardi Trophies, the Celtics’ O’Brien Trophy and the Red Sox’ two Commissioner’s Trophies? Think of all the money that could be raised for charity in one afternoon. Just sayin’.)
With all these championships as a jumping point as we discuss what’s going on in the Canadian west, it’s easy to see why Vancouver fans are so powerful in their support for the Canucks. They entered the NHL as an expansion team for the 1970-71 season, and the closest they have come to winning a Stanley Cup was in 1994, when they suffered a gut-wrenching 3-2 loss to the New York Rangers in Game 7 of the finals. (It was the Rangers’ first Cup victory in 54 years, forever placing into mothballs a much-loved chant by Islanders fans: “1940!”)
And so if this year’s Stanley Cup tourney goes the full seven games, each team’s fans get one more chance to go crazy. If there’s a Game 7, the Canucks and their fans will get their chance Wednesday night at Rogers Arena.
But tonight is Game 6 at the Garden, last call for the Gallery Gods and all their descendants.
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