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
wherever it goes The Stanley Cup is also one of the oldest trophies in professional team sports as it has been awarded to hockey champions since 1893 Starting in 1918 the Stanley Cup was given to the champion of the NHL It still is today The Cup has come a long way since Lord Frederick Arthur Stanley then governor general of Canada came up with the idea that there should be a trophy awarded to that country’s hockey champion
The Stanley Cup trophy has changed over the years The bowl on top is a replica of the original trophy
