Leo- Thursday, June 10, 2010
A difficult emotional experience some time ago has left you feeling fragile, vulnerable and exposed. You are free now to move on from that experience, but your inability to stop feeding it with your thoughts is delaying your recovery and depriving you of valuable time in your quest for happiness. The next New Moon will mark a turning point that frees you from the past and initiates a new positive you era of fulfilment.
PHILADELPHIA—From the moment they entered the league together as fresh-faced rookies, this explosively-joyous moment seemed inevitable. Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane, two dynamic talents able to grow together with an impressive supporting cast en route to winning Chicago a Stanley Cup.
Inevitable? Absolutely. Toews started believing his boyhood championship dreams could come to fruition when he saw the talent assembled around him at training camp.
The reality felt better than how he’d imagined it.
“Oh my God. It’s like that commercial. I’m speechless,” he said shortly after he was presented the Stanley Cup by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.
“This team put on one heck of a run. We knew from day one of the season we had the potential to do it. And to realize our goal, it’s an amazing feeling.”
In a terrific finale to a tremendously entertaining Cup final, Toews and Kane — opponents in the Olympic gold medal game — ensured themselves a place on hockey’s chalice in Chicago’s lightning-paced 4-3 overtime victory over the relentless and admirable Flyers on Wednesday.
Toews, the Canadian from Winnipeg, was named the Conn Smythe Trophy winner as playoff MVP. Kane, the American from Buffalo, scored the winner at 4:06 of overtime.
Coming down the left wing, Kane beat defenceman Kimmo Timonen and, from what looked like an impossible angle while driving to the net — not unlike a certain golden goal at the Vancouver Games — fired a shot at the net that somehow slipped under Flyers goaltender Michael Leighton. There was a momentary pause as no one seemed to know where the puck was — it ended up under the padding at the bottom of the net — but, suddenly, Kane erupted in celebration, sprinting the length of the ice with his arms in the air.
“I had to celebrate a little more because I knew it was in. I tried to sell the celebration a little bit,” said Kane in the on-ice pandemonium after the Cup was presented. “I just booked it for the other end of the ice.”
“I just took a quick shot to the far side of the net and it went through (Michael Leighton’s) legs. It was just like the Olympic goal (Sidney) Crosby scored. This is something unbelievable to be a part of. I mean we won the Stanley Cup. To score the winning goal in the Stanley Cup finals — it was unbelievable.”
The Flyers — an underdog team that won itself tremendous admiration if not the Cup — were understandably disconsolate and a little stunned at how suddenly their miracle playoff run ended.
“I saw one of their players take off across the ice, like he’d won something and I got a pit in my stomach,” said Flyers’ coach Peter Laviolette.
Toews was among those who wasn’t certain the puck was in — video replay confirmed what Kane knew — but he joined the party anyway.
“I was just hoping to God it was an actual goal or we would be celebrating for nothing,” he said.
It was quite a turnaround for Kane, who was dogged by controversy this year. There was the incident in Buffalo when he was arrested for beating on a cab driver over change for a fare. Then pictures of him shirtless in a limo with women surfaced on the internet.
“Things have turned 180 degrees for me this year,” said the 21-year-old. “Some of the stuff that happened this season was just what happens to a young person sometimes.”
The win gives the Blackhawks their first Stanley Cup since 1961 in six games. It also bumps the Maple Leafs to the top of the list with St. Louis and Los Angeles for the NHL’s longest championship drought, 43 years and counting.
“You can’t plan on something like this happening so quickly,” said Toews, at 22-year-old, the second-youngest captain to hoist the Stanley Cup.
“I mean, since the day (Kane and I) both came in as rookies, so much has gone well for us. And we understand that — the way the opportunities were given, the players we’re playing with, the guys in the locker room we’re surrounded with, everything was set up for us to have success and have fun playing hockey.”
On this night, the ride had no passengers.
There was Marian Hossa, denied this achievement on two visits to the final in the last two springs, playing like a man possessed. Toews handed the Cup to him first to begin the celebrations with the trophy.
“What a relief,” he said. “I’m so happy to finally win this.”
There was defenceman Duncan Keith, so brilliant through this final. There was big winger Dustin Byfuglien, shut down early in the final, rallying to find his game with three goals in the last two games. And goaltender Antii Niemi, the silent puck stopper, who allowed this game to make it to overtime with a huge save on Jeff Carter in the final seconds.
Toews, Keith and fellow blueliner Brent Seabrook were all teammates on Canada’s Olympic gold medal team giving them membership in a rather exclusive double-championship club.
For a while it looked like the Flyers really were destiny’s team and there was reason to believe on Broad Street.
Trailing 3-2 late in the third, the Flyers got the break of a lifetime to push the game into extra time.
With four minutes remaining, Ville Leino fired a blind centering pass in front of the Chicago net and more than 20,000 fans at Wachovia Center held their breath as the rubber disk pinballed off Seabrook’s stick and Hossa’s leg before, somehow, Scott Hartnell got enough of his stick on the puck to direct it into the Hawks’ net as he tumbled to the ice. It was Hartnell’s second goal of the night as the winger who looks like his hair is on fire played like it all game.
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