A champion at last Colorado Avalanche defenseman Ray Bourque lifts the Stanley Cup in 2001
CHAPTER 1 THE STANLEY CUP The voice of ESPN announcer Gary Thorne boomed After 22 years Raymond Bourque As Thorne called the action Colorado Avalanche captain Joe Sakic handed the Stanley Cup to Bourque Avalanche fans cheered but so did most National Hockey League NHL fans For 21 years Bourque had been a superstar defenseman for the Boston Bruins He was one of the best in the league for much of that time But after more than two decades in Boston Bourque had still not won the Stanley Cup In 2000 at age 39 Bourque knew his career was winding down And he knew the Bruins the only team he’d ever played for were struggling Making the playoffs much less winning a championship appeared unlikely
So Bourque requested that the Bruins trade him to a team that had a chance to win In March 2000 the Bruins did just that sending their captain to Colorado With superstar forwards Sakic and Peter Forsberg plus veteran goalie Patrick Roy the Avs had the pieces in place to make a run With Bourque manning the blue line the Avs indeed made a run However it ended one game short of the Stanley Cup Final The Dallas Stars beat Colorado in seven games in that year’s Western Conference finals Bourque was 40 years old that season But having come so close he decided to come back and make one more run at the Cup in 2000 01 This time the Avs couldn’t be stopped They won an NHL-best 52 games during the regular season In the playoffs they forced their way past the Vancouver Canucks Los Angeles Kings and St Louis Blues That set up a Stanley Cup Final against the powerful New Jersey Devils
In a hard-fought series Colorado jumped to an early lead only to find itself down three games to two But a 4 0 shutout in Game 6 sent the series back to Denver for the deciding Game 7 The Avs kept rolling They scored three goals before New Jersey’s first and that’s how the game ended 3 1 The long wait was over for Bourque That game was the 1,826th of Bourque’s NHL career between the regular season and playoffs It was also his last Bourque retired a champion but also as an example of how hard it is to win that trophy Joe Sakic had an incredible year that year but I always tell him that’s the best assist you ever had passing me the Cup Bourque said After 22 years of trying to accomplish that it was an incredible story just an incredible feeling and an incredible relief The Stanley Cup has often been referred to as the most famous trophy in sports Standing at nearly three feet tall and weighing 34 5 pounds the Stanley Cup draws a crowd
