Stanley Cup Hockey Championship

The two latest entries to the 1995 sports almanac: In the NBA finals, Houston swept Orlando, four games to none. In the Stanley Cup finals, New Jersey swept Detroit, four games to none. Just the way it was sketched out last October. The Magic and the Red Wings had to know.

It's the game they played on rutted roads while the light faded and their toes grew numb, the scenario they imagined as kids in Slovakia, Sweden, Saskatchewan, Syosset, N.Y., Sverdlovsk, Russia, and Sault Ste. Marie, Canada. Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals, tonight at Joe Louis Arena, between the Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins. It's a shot at hockey immortality, to have your name inscribed on the Cup to be traced by envious eyes and timid fingertips.

Marty McSorley's soft voice always seems incongruous with his bruising brand of hockey. After the Stanley Cup was lost Wednesday night, his words were even softer, his blue eyes more blank. They flared to life only in moments of resistance and frustration on two topics--his stick and his future. Until Montreal Coach Jacques Demers' bold challenge of McSorley's stick in Game 2, the Kings had a bead on the Stanley Cup championship.

The Pittsburgh Penguins weren't about to go quietly. After watching the Detroit Red Wings celebrate on their home ice a year ago, the Penguins this time held serve at home in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals rematch to record a 2-1 victory at Mellon Arena on Tuesday night. The win in front of 17,132 fans, most wearing white T-shirts and waving white towels, evened the best-of-seven series at 3-3 and set up a Game 7 showdown for the NHL championship in Detroit on Friday night.

Onward and upward. If it's Monday, this must be Quebec. Hopscotching the provinces of Canada, our brave little traveling band of California tourists has enjoyed sight-seeing from Alberta to British Columbia to Ontario, and now wanders along its merry way to majestic and historic Montreal, home of hockey's royal family, Les Habitants, and hosts this week to the fresh princes of Tinseltown. Canadiens vs. Kings. The Habs vs. the Hab-Nots.

Desperate Mighty Duck fans were waving their giveaway towels in a furious fashion early and often Saturday night, imploring their team to turn its fortunes in the Stanley Cup finals while transforming the Pond into a swirling sea of white. Except for one seat -- in section 206, Row R. Dalia Gomez stood defiantly and pulled out her own rally rag, a red number emblazoned with the New Jersey logo, and went to work when her son, Devil center Scott Gomez, took the ice.

The Mighty Ducks have been portrayed as having skated straight out of Fantasyland, a Disney movie come to life under that company's ownership. But the reality is, they were first Bruce McNall's fantasy, a vehicle for easing his dire financial problems. If it weren't for the former King owner, there probably wouldn't be an NHL team called the Ducks, nor Stanley Cup finals at the Arrowhead Pond this weekend, nor, perhaps, pro hockey franchises stretched across the Sun Belt.

Before the 2006-07 season, Anaheim shortened its nickname from Mighty Ducks to Ducks. On Wednesday night, their name again got longer: Stanley Cup champions. After a strong regular season, the Ducks were overpowering in the playoffs, winning 16 of 21 games.

Much is being made of the New Jersey Devils' trapping defense in these first two games, but not by me. Nearly every team plays the trap. The difference in this series is not the system. It's the passion. What I see is that the Ducks are not fighting through the trap. They are not playing with the same emotion they had in the first three rounds. They are becoming frustrated and, as a result, they are trying to play a little too safe.

The real Ranger fans knew their hearts would be broken again. The Wall Street types in the expensive suits thought the game was over and were high-fiving each other, but the fans in the cheaper seats--no seats at Madison Square Garden are cheap--held back. They were wondering what form the torture would take this time, how the defeat they saw coming would compare to all the other wounds they had suffered since the Rangers last won the Stanley Cup in 1940.

Marc-Andre Fleury's grin was visible through the slats of his mask, a smile as wide as the net he protected so staunchly when circumstances demanded he be as close to perfect as a goaltender can be. Fleury's resilience and skill in the Pittsburgh Penguins' 2-1 victory Tuesday at Mellon Arena are the reasons the Stanley Cup was returned to its packing case after it was polished instead of going home with the Red Wings.

The last coach to win a playoff series against the Detroit Red Wings takes pride in that distinction, and he should. With Detroit poised to win its second straight Stanley Cup championship tonight with a victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins at Mellon Arena, Randy Carlyle might hold on to that honor for a while. Carlyle's Ducks defeated the Red Wings in the 2007 Western Conference finals before defeating Ottawa to win the Cup.

Dan Bylsma and Mike Babcock were on the same side in the 2003 Stanley Cup finals, Bylsma a diligent penalty killer for the then Mighty Ducks and Babcock a rookie NHL coach who unexpectedly led a team that put defense first (and second and third) to a Game 7 against the New Jersey Devils. Bylsma, now the Pittsburgh Penguins' coach, has never forgotten being engulfed by the sickening sensation that his team was going to see the Devils hoist the Cup in sweaty glee. "I can remember vividly.

The Penguins grew up Thursday, making the defending Stanley Cup champion Red Wings look old and spent in a game that might trigger the beginning of the end of Detroit's dynasty. The Penguins' young legs carried them to successful two-on-one rushes, a power-play goal and the first short-handed goal scored against Detroit in 20 playoff games this spring.

The Pittsburgh Penguins had enough of history repeating itself. Meeting the Detroit Red Wings in the Stanley Cup finals for the second year in a row, the Penguins had lost the first two games on the road before winning Game 3 at Mellon Arena -- just like last year. Consider history rewritten as instead of falling in Game 4 the way they did a year ago, the Penguins beat the Red Wings, 4-2. on Thursday night to even the best-of-seven series at 2-2. Game 5 will be Saturday night at Joe Louis Arena.

They had superstars block shots and support players score goals, meaning that the Pittsburgh Penguins essentially turned themselves inside out Tuesday to defeat the Detroit Red Wings and claw their way back into the Stanley Cup finals.

Disney Chairman Michael Eisner has jumped onto the Mighty Ducks' bandwagon -- and since it's his bandwagon, who's to argue? Eisner was among the nervous spectators Saturday at the Arrowhead Pond, exulting after the team's good moments, grimacing through the bad ones and joining the players in the locker room afterward to congratulate them on their 3-2 overtime victory over the New Jersey Devils. "I was a wreck in overtime," said Eisner, who has previously declined interview requests.

Prolonged by a power failure Tuesday night at Boston Garden, the Stanley Cup championship series has moved back to the Northlands Coliseum, where tonight the Edmonton Oilers will attempt to extinguish the Boston Bruins. And not for the first time.

The Pittsburgh Penguins got themselves back into their Stanley Cup finals series against the Detroit Red Wings with a 4-2 victory in Game 3 at Mellon Arena on Tuesday night. The win, in front of a crowd of 17,123, cut the Red Wings' lead in the best-of-seven series to 2-1 with Game 4 on Thursday night in Pittsburgh. The Penguins are attempting to become just the fourth team in NHL history to rebound from an 0-2 deficit and win the Cup.

PITTSBURGH -- The Pittsburgh Penguins' season was ticking away. Champagne was being delivered to the Detroit Red Wings' locker room at Joe Louis Arena and the Stanley Cup had been polished to a blinding shine. In the first defining moment for a young team, Maxime Talbot -- on the ice in place of goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, brought the Penguins even with 34.3 seconds left in the third period by scoring a tenacious, second-effort goal.