Our Cup Runneth Over

The Bear came out of hibernation, and suddenly 39 New England winters of discontent just melted, as if by magic, like the moment in “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” when Aslan returns to Narnia. The Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup last Wednesday night, and ever since it has been a nonstop love-fest between the fans and the team. The game 7 win, the plane ride back from Vancouver, the Stanley Cup popping up in neighborhood bars everywhere, the Rolling Rally on duck boats through Boston and streets lined by more than a million fans, and the surreal scene at Fenway Park yesterday, culminating in Bruins wearing Red Sox caps throwing out first pitches to Red Sox wearing Bruins caps. As celebrations of tribal euphoria go, it will be hard to top.

And that’s saying something for a region that has been blessed to see seven world championships from its four major sports teams in less than a decade. The Patriots (three Super Bowls), Red Sox (two World Series titles), Celtics (one NBA finals trophy) and Bruins (one Stanley Cup) have accomplished something that no group of teams in any city or region in America can claim. Boston is Banner Town, and now the Bruins legacy has another piece of hardware, adding a glint of silver to the generations of stories spanning Eddie Shore to Milt Schmidt to Bobby Orr to Cam Neely to Tim Thomas.

We’ve said it before when the B's were alternating seasons of heartbreak and futility. Even though basketball was invented in Springfield, Mass., and the modern American gridiron version of football evolved out of games on the Boston Common, where the Oneida Football Club of Boston became the first organized team to play any kind of football in the United States, this is a hockey and baseball region first and foremost, representing our winter and summer souls. The Red Sox are the oldest team still playing in Boston, a charter member of the American League, winners of the first World Series, a storybook franchise playing in a storybook park. The Bruins are the second-oldest, one of the Original Six, and the first club from the United States to join the NHL.

Yesterday at the Fens, the Bruins were the toast of the Olde Towne. Speakers blared team anthems: “Dirty Water” by The Standells, played after every Bruins (and Red Sox) win; “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” by The Dropkick Murphys; “Black and Yellow” by Wiz Khalifa (apologies to Pittsburgh fans, since the anthem was written for them; then again, the Penguins took the Bruins colors when they came into the league, so maybe we can call it even); and most enjoyably, “Nutty” (a.k.a. “The Nut Rocker”) by The Ventures, a surf-rock instrumental version of “The Nutcracker Suite” beloved to all fans that grew up watching Bobby Orr and The Big, Bad Bruins through the fuzzy static and twitching rabbit ears of Channel 38. To top it off, during the Red Sox’ romp over the Brewers, every time Boston scored a run fans heard the Bruins’ goal celebration of a foghorn followed by Zombie Nation’s “Kernkraft 400” sample from the soundtrack of “Shaun of the Dead.” (Even the Celtics were represented, with Ray Allen sitting in the box seats with his children next to the Red Sox dugout.)

Great stuff. And the Stanley Cup, the world’s greatest sporting trophy (ah, the stories it could tell…), will be starring all summer in a local version of “Where’s Waldo?” called “Where’s Stanley?” We’ve already seen it on a rooftop apartment and in a baby stroller in the North End, at Tia’s on the waterfront, Stella on the South End, at Gypsy Bar, Foxwoods Casino and even the pitcher’s mound at Fenway Park.

Amazing. Summer starts tomorrow and everyone is still talking hockey. Earlier this spring, while trying to get some sleep at 3 a.m. at Blackwoods campground in Acadia, Maine, I couldn’t help eavesdropping at the campfire conversation next to me, a dozen or so young people talking excitedly about the Bruins-Tampa Bay series. The next morning, at Trailhead Café in Bar Harbor, one after another Bruins fan came in, asking the owner whether the B’s could contain Vancouver’s dynamic Sedin twins (they could) and whether Timmy Thomas, the University of Vermont graduate who spent the early part of his career sweating it out in Finland and Sweden and minor-league outposts such as Birmingham, Ala., and Houston and Hamilton, Ontario, could summon up one more stellar series (he could). After Wednesday’s victory, Sen. John Kerry phoned a sports talk radio show in Boston (J.K. from D.C.? The Senator from a van down by the Potomac?) just to exult in the triumph and relive some of its highlights.

Part of the reason for such universal joy about this year’s team is how unexpected it was, following so many seasons of epic collapses, Game 7 losses, high expectations dashed and – some years – little to root for. In that way, it was like the Patriots winning their first Super Bowl and the Red Sox toppling the Yankees then sweeping the Cardinals for their first World Series title in 86 years. Like those seasons – the Snow Game, the Tuck Rule, Adam Vinatieri’s Greatest Field Goal Ever (45 yards in a blizzard), followed by an overtime kick and winning the Super Bowl as time expired for the Pats; the Dave Roberts steal, Big Papi walk-offs and Curt Schilling’s Bloody Sock game for the Sox – this Bruins year had the stuff of magic about it. Tim Thomas’s Greatest Save Ever (“stick save and a beauty!”) against the Lightning. Bobby Orr waving the giant, black-and-gold No. 18 banner in honor of injured Bruin Nathan Horton. Former Providence Bruin Brad Marchand (forever known as “Marshmont” to loyal listeners of 98.5 The Sports Hub, the B’s flagship station) completing the holy trinity of hockey antagonism in 30 seconds, beginning with a Kevin McHale-like clothesline of one Canuck, followed by a ducking up-and-under to topple another oncoming skater, then an immediate fists-up skirmish with a third Vancouver player. Horton smuggling melted Garden ice and pouring it on the rink in Vancouver just prior to Game 7. Or the stoic captain Zdeno Chara, who stands 7-feet on skates, hoisting the Cup higher than it has ever been lifted before and uttering a Slovakian primal scream.

What was your favorite moment of the Bruins’ run to the Stanley Cup?