Lot of BC flavour to the Stanley Cup final

For the first time in history the Vancouver Canucks and Boston Bruins will square off in the Stanley Cup final. This is an amazing feat for both clubs as the Canucks have not been here since 1994 and never won it, and the Bruins haven’t reached this level of success since 1990 and have not won it all since 1972!

Obviously this will be a hard fought series, and a physically demanding one that will go down to the wire no doubt. Boston is not a team we know much about in this market, and yet they sport a larger BC contingent than the Vancouver Canucks. While the Canucks have Dan Hamhuis from Smithers as their lone British Columbia representative. The Boston Bruins have former Vancouver Giant Milan Lucic ,as well as the ageless wonder Mark Recchi. The Bruins assistant GM Scott Bradley resides in Abbotsford and his father Bart, who was a longtime scout for the team, has always sought local talent.

But the one BC aspect that will always link the Canucks and Bruins, is Cam Neely. Very rarely has a team paid for one mistake for such a long time, and in a funny twist of fate the Cam Neely trade could bite them in the ass this series as well. How you ask? Let me explain.

It has been well documented in these parts the lopsidedness of the Neely deal. We gave up Neely and a 1st round pick which turned out to be Glenn Wesley for local boy Barry Pederson. Wesley became a very solid defenseman for the Bruins and had a long NHL career. The Bruins would deal Wesley to the Hartford Whalers in 1994 for three 1st round picks, one of which they used to select Russian hotshot Sergei Samsonov. They would later deal Samsonov to Edmonton for Yan Stastny, Marty Reasoner and a 2nd round pick in 2006. That 2nd round pick? They used to select Milan Lucic. It appears to be the deal that never ends for the Canucks and every time Lucic makes a difference in this series it will bring back memories of that fateful deal. To make matters worse Cam Neely is the team president and will be looking on for every minute of it!

These are certainly two teams who deserve to win the big prize, both have had droughts that need to end and in the Canucks case they need to win at least one championship in their history. However, if the Canucks are unable to pull this off take some solace in the fact that the Bruins have always been a team who has represented BC well. From Barry Pederson to Cam Neely, Andy Moog to Bill Ranford, Brent Hughes to Zach Hamill this has always had a West Coast feel to the team and this year is no different. With Lucic and Recchi leading the way no matter what happens the Stanley Cup will spend some time in BC.