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 PARTY ON: It appeared to be over. The Bruins had a 2-1 lead with 2 minutes left, and the Stanley Cup was all but packed away for a Game 7 back in Chicago. But then Bryan Bickell tied it with 1:16 left, and Dave Bolland scored 17 seconds later to give the Blackhawks the lead. Sure enough, the Stanley Cup was headed to Chicago on Monday night -- only it was traveling on the Blackhawks' team plane. It turns out the NHL's second-highest scoring team in the regular season had one more brilliant burst left. It's the second championship in four years for Chicago and No. 5 overall, and it sure looks as if it's going to be quite the party this week in the Windy City. Fans filled the streets of Chicago after the victory, and there were honking car horns blaring well into the night.
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SWEET HOME -- Home is for parades. The Blackhawks will take The Cup wherever they can get their hands on it, and their last three titles came in a Game 6 on the road. Chicago won in overtime at Philadelphia to decide the 2010 finals, ending a 49-year drought since it last won in 1961 -- also clinched in Game 6 on the road with a 5-1 win at Detroit. And the 2013 Stanley Cup champions are still built around young talent like Patrick Kane, who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP. "We thought we were going home for Game 7," Kane said. "You still think you're going to overtime and you're going to try to win it there, then Bolly scores a huge goal 17 seconds later. "It feels like the last 58 seconds were an eternity." There were also plenty of red jerseys in the arena and crowding the glass during the postgame celebration.
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OUCH -- Boston forward Patrice Bergeron knows how to play through pain. After gingerly skating off in his last shift of Game 5, then being taken to the hospital with a mystery injury, Bergeron fessed up after Game 6 about what exactly was wrong with him. And it was not another concussion. It was a list of other areas: a broken rib, torn cartilage and muscles and a separated shoulder. "It's Stanley Cup Final. Everyone's banged up. Everyone wants to help the team and obviously I couldn't do that in Game 5," Bergeron said. "It was mostly because they were worried about my spleen being hurt, so that's why we had to go to the hospital. But everything was fine so it was just the ribs, and the muscles, and the soft tissue."
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NEXT -- The fifth Stanley Cup in Blackhawks history tied Chicago with Edmonton for fifth on the franchise list of most titles. Boston is next with six, Detroit is third with 11 and Toronto stands at No. 2 with 13 Cups. And all would need a double-figure run of consecutive titles to catch all-time leader Montreal, which has won 23.
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NO GOALS FOR JAGR -- What may have been the final NHL playoffs for 41-year-old Jaromir Jagr ended without a goal. Boston's trade-deadline acquisition had 10 assists, but did not score a goal for the Bruins in any of the four rounds. Jagr made his playoff debut with Pittsburgh in 1991, winning the first of back-to-back Stanley Cup titles, and his 199 career playoff points are fifth all-time.
[Associated
Press; By DOUG ALDEN]
Copyright 2013 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
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