Congrats to Chicago Black Hawks !

[Jesse Joe]

The little pissant is not liked !

http://timestranscript.canadaeast.com/sports/article/1088551



http://harvest.canadaeast.com/image.php?id=516173&size=265x0

Chihawks raise Cup

Published Thursday June 10th, 2010


Patrick Kane's overtime goal ends 49-year drought

Canwest News Serivce

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None of the players, and not all that many of their fathers, were around when the Stanley Cup last made the rounds in the Windy City, but last night the Chicago Blackhawks ended the second longest Cupless streak in the National Hockey League at 49 years.

[Jesse Joe]

http://timestranscript.canadaeast.com/sports/article/1090150

Leafs now most title-starved

Published Friday June 11th, 2010


Blackhawks' Stanley Cup victory puts Toronto on the clock

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


PHILADELPHIA - With the Chicago Blackhawks' 49-year Stanley Cup drought a part of history, the Toronto Maple Leafs are now on the clock.

Since last winning the NHL championship in 1967, the Maple Leafs have seen each of their Original Six brethren hoist the Cup as well as 11 expansion teams. Toronto now has the biggest gap between titles among teams that were around the last time the Maple Leafs won it.

Toronto, which hasn't even qualified for the playoffs the past five seasons, will have a tough enough time just getting out of the Eastern Conference where powerhouses Washington and Pittsburgh reside. The Capitals and Penguins are built on the strength of young superstars and appear set to dominate for years.

Pittsburgh has already won the Stanley Cup and had another runner-up finish since Sidney Crosby came aboard, while the Capitals' stunning first-round knockout by Montreal will surely rile up already excitable forward Alex Ovechkin once he gets back on the ice.

The biggest surprise of this post-season isn't that the young Blackhawks rose up to win the Cup for the first time since 1961, it's that neither the Penguins nor Capitals reached the Eastern Conference finals. There is so much balance and parity in that the seventh-seeded Philadelphia Flyers got on a run and nearly skated off with the Cup.

It wasn't until the second-seeded Blackhawks picked them off with a 4-3 overtime road win in Game 6 that the surprising surge ended.

That is where the story of this hockey season ceased and the look toward the next campaign began. Chances are the Blackhawks will be making stabs at multiple championships instead of counting the years between few and far between titles.

"It's pretty crazy," Chicago forward Patrick Kane said. "You envision this and hope for the best when you first come in, but everything we've been through, it's been obviously an unbelievable year. Very exciting. It's fun to be a part of it right now."

Kane, along with young captain Jonathan Toews, are the two biggest reasons the Blackhawks have been able to rise from the bottom portion of the NHL standings in 2007 to the top of the heap in just three years. Toews, an Olympic and Stanley Cup champion at age 22, was chosen with the No. 3 pick in the 2006 draft. Kane was taken No. 1 overall one year later.

The influx of veteran forwards such as now three-time Cup winner John Madden, who grew up in the title-conscious world of the New Jersey Devils, and Marian Hossa proved to be enough to get Chicago over the hump after it made a trip to the West finals last year.

The Blackhawks rolled through Nashville and Vancouver before taking their biggest step by sweeping top-seeded San Jose upon their return to hockey's final four.

Madden beamed on the ice at the Wachovia Center on Wednesday night as he was surrounded by his family in the madness of the spontaneous celebration created by Kane's overtime goal.

Usually intense and stern, Madden smiled and spoke glowingly about his young teammates that finally experienced this thrill.

[charlene]

we're number ONE!!
lol
the division is a killer as is the baseball division.
BUT...ya gotta love them!