Stanley Cup Finals

This season's Stanley Cup finals offer both rematch and revulsion. The Edmonton Oilers and the Philadelphia Flyers will replay their meeting in the 1985 finals--that's the rematch. Hockey fans interested in bloodletting will no doubt hope for a replay of the Flyers' Brawl at Montreal, in which the Flyers and the Canadiens pounded each other to bits before the game started--that's the revulsion.

The Calgary Flames--the hottest bunch of players in the National Hockey League, conquerors of the Smythe Division, spoilers who swept away the Kings' hopes in the first year of the Wayne Gretzky era, repeat winners of the President's Trophy for the season's best record--are Stanley Cup finalists for the second time. And once again, the Flames are up against the Montreal Canadiens. The Canadiens are not quite as hot as the Flames, but the Canadiens are going into the seven-game series, which starts tonight at the Saddledome in Calgary, with something the Flames do not have.

Kirk McLean's world turned upside down that day nearly seven years ago when the New Jersey Devils traded him to the Vancouver Canucks. "It was a sad moment because I had a lot of friends in New Jersey," he said. "Being from the East Coast, from the Toronto area, I didn't know much about Vancouver. It worked out in the long run. To this point, anyway." Thanks to McLean's spectacular goaltending, the Canucks need three more victories to win their first Stanley Cup.

Margaret Cater's name won't be engraved on the Stanley Cup if the New York Rangers win the NHL championship, but maybe it should be. If not for Cater's interest in hockey, her son, Neil Smith, wouldn't have had anyone to shoot pucks at in their driveway as a child. And if not for that, Smith might not have grown up to become general manager of the Rangers, who can win their first Cup since 1940 with a victory over the Vancouver Canucks tonight at Madison Square Garden.

Nineteen-nineteen was anything but a banner year for championship sports events. The World Series, of course, was marred by the Black Sox scandal, and the Stanley Cup finals, only the second of its kind after the formation of the National Hockey League in 1917, was canceled because of an influenza epidemic that swept the continent. The Montreal Canadiens and the Seattle Metropolitans had each won two games--a fifth game ended in a scoreless tie--before five of the Canadiens' nine players became ill. Also ill was the Canadiens' manager, George Washington Kennedy.

This year's Stanley Cup finals have been called "Beauty and the Beast," implying that the glamorous Edmonton Oilers might be at a disadvantage in a low-scoring game against the big, bad Boston Bruins. But as they have throughout the playoffs, the Oilers showed in the first game of the series Wednesday night that they can adapt to whatever style is needed on any particular night.

When Wayne Gretzky missed 16 games this season with knee and eye injuries, it probably cost him his ninth Hart Trophy as the most valuable player in the National Hockey League. What it also did, however, was leave him refreshed for the playoffs, much to the chagrin of the rest of the league.

The dramatic Flyer comeback in Game 3 here Friday night may have done more damage to the Edmonton Oilers than just cutting their lead in the series to 2-1. The Oilers have been playing at the top of their game, which means almost no team can stop them. With each game they have been gaining confidence, especially goaltender Grant Fuhr. "Sometimes, it seems as if you can't get anything past him," Flyer forward Peter Zezel said. The confidence has shifted, however.

Mention the name Cyclone Taylor to the average hockey fan and, in all probability, you'll get a blank stare. But that's not what you'll get from Chico Resch. "He played 50 years ago with the old Vancouver Canucks," the Philadelphia Flyers' veteran goaltender says and smiles. Resch can give you a brief history of this long-forgotten old-timer, describing even what his uniform looked like. It figured that if anyone could do it, Resch could.