The SBP Archives - Your less than frequent dose of SBP!

- Watching the Bruins players jump off the bench in celebration and pile onto goaltender Tim Thomas at the end of game 7 for capturing their first Stanley Cup title since 1972, it was hard not to get chills watching it. If you're a Canucks fans, other thoughts probably crossed your mind, but for myself and for many passionate hockey fans, imagining yourself being a part of the celebration makes your heart skip a beat. The long journey that started in October of 2010 has come to an end just over eight months later. We can only wish to hoist the Cup over our heads and that is what makes winning the Cup so special.

- A lot of people are pointing the finger at Roberto Luongo for Vancouver's missed opportunity, and surely he didn't step up to the challenge when his team lost their four games (when Vancouver lost, they got spanked in the process), but the Canucks only scored a combined eight goals in the seven game Cup final. The Sedins, Kesler...nowhere to be found. Boston taking game 7 in my mind was justice, as really they outplayed Vancouver for most of the series and even in the games they lost, they kept it close and they just as easily could have won those.

- Plenty of Ottawa connections with the Bruins Cup victory. Former Senators Zdeno Chara, Chris Kelly, even "Sheriff" Shane Hnidy will all have their names engraved on Lord Stanley. General Manager Peter Chiarelli is from the Ottawa area and was a former assistant GM for the Senators before taking the big job in Boston (signing Chara away in the process, probably the worst decision ever made in Sens history). Coach Claude Julien (who probably would have been the Sens head coach for next season if Montreal beat them in game 7 back in the first round of the playoffs) is from Navan. The Cup will definitely be around the nation's capital for long stretches during the summer.

- It is too bad this edition of the Stanley Cup playoffs will likely be remembered mostly for the riots that occurred after game 7. Vancouver embarrassed itself and Canada for all the shenanigans that occurred afterwards, and I know there were likely "anarchists" and "non-Canucks fans" that might have planned it as the chief of Vancouver police stated in a press release, but there sure seemed like a lot of people in the crowds wearing Canucks jerseys that didn't mind contributing to the madness. There were no such problems in Calgary, Edmonton or Ottawa during their Cup finals, and why Vancouver has to be different, I'm not sure. If that's the way the city is going to act in defeat, in my mind they don't deserve their team winning anything at all.

I occasionally dable in the odd instant scratch lottery ticket, and usually, I lose. But this time, it got interesting when I picked up a Cash for Life ticket (and I'll tell you this right off the bat in case you're expecting me to reveal I was the grand prize winner: No, I didn't win $1,000 a week for life).

Each ticket costs $4, so I bought one ticket and won $12. Always the gambler, I traded that in for three more tickets. First ticket, another four bucks. Second ticket...hey, $30, not bad! Nothing for the third ticket. So what should I do with the $34? Buy more tickets of course!

So I pocketed two bucks and bought eight more Cash for Life tickets. Having all those tickets to scratch is kinda fun! The end result: $28. Feeling like I'm on a bit of a hot streak, I pick up seven more tickets. This time, I have $18 in prizes won, a bit of a drop from before.

Thinking the hot streak has somewhat ended, I decided I'd take that $18 and buy Lotto 6/49 numbers for that evening's draw. And unforunately, that's where my story ends, as no multi-million dollar prize was awarded to SBP after everything was said and done.

And that's the end of my story.