True Grit

With a resounding 4-0 victory over Vancouver in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals Wednesday night, Zdeno Chara and the Bruins capped off an incredible postseason run by winning their first championship in 39 years.

Even before the puck was dropped Wednesday night, the championship chasing Bruins and their long-suffering fans had a good feeling about Game 7 in Vancouver. However, it was not due to the fact that the Black and Gold had already won a pair of monumental Game 7's this postseason. Or the fact that the Bruins undoubtedly play their best hockey when pushed to the absolute brink.

Instead, the renewed sense of confidence came from a more unlikely but divine source: the heavens.

On Wednesday night, with the Bruins looking to end a 39-year championship drought, a lunar eclipse took place across North America. The importance? Well, if you remember correctly, a lunar eclipse also took place on October 27, 2004: the day the Red Sox defeated the St. Louis Cardinals to win their first World Series title in 86 years.

Coincidence? Apparently not.

With the stars literally aligned, the never-say-die Bruins waltzed into Vancouver and played like gods in Game 7, silencing the besieged Canucks and their sell-out crowd of 18,860 at Rogers Arena.

Led by the stellar goaltending of Tim Thomas (37 saves), the Bruins picked up a pair of goals each from Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand to defeat Vancouver 4-0 and secure their first Stanley Cup Final championship since 1972.

"You've been waiting a long time, but you got it," said Thomas to Bruins fans after the game. "You wanted it, you got it. We're bringing it home."

At the start of the game, with the Canucks feeding off the crowd's electricity, Vancouver came out swinging and began peppering Thomas early and often in search of the game's first goal.

Luckily for the Bruins, their fourth line of Gregory Campbell centering Shawn Thornton and Daniel Paille stepped up and changed the tempo, imposing their physical will while also landing three of Boston's five first-period shots.

"They were unbelievable," admitted Dennis Seidenberg, who pitched in with two assists. "They battled hard to give us energy every time they were out there. They were getting hits. They were forechecking hard. For them to give us that breather and that extra energy, it was great."

Settling down, Boston struck first with just under five minutes remaining in the first period to take a 1-0 lead. Sparking the play, Marchand feathered a beautiful pass down low to Bergeron who quickly one-timed the feed past Luongo for his first goal of the Finals.

"We got the first goal, and we knew that would be important coming here," said Mark Recchi, who retired after the game and gets to out on top. "If they got any chances, Timmy was there, and it was just scary how good he was."

Sensing the enormity of the situation, the Bruins, backstopped by their star goaltender, began playing flawless hockey.

Marchand extended the lead to 2-0 midway through the second period. Then, just over five minutes later, Bergeron made it 3-0 when he led a shorthanded breakaway and then tumbled into the Vancouver net, along with the puck, for his second goal of the game.

Capping an amazing postseason in which he set the record for most goals by a Bruins rookie (11), Marchand added an empty-net goal at 17:16 of the third period to make it 4-0 and officially put the game out of reach.

With the clock winding down, it all seemed too good to be true for Bruins fans. Then, when the final buzzer sounded, the dream became a reality.

After 39 years of futility, heartbreak and suffering, the Boston Bruins had won the Stanley Cup.

"It's so surreal right now," said Marchand. "You skate around and lift that Cup up, you can't even believe it. You work your whole life for it and for it to be right there, it's unbelievable."

"It's tough to soak everything in," admitted Bergeron. "But at the same time, we've worked so hard. We believed in us that we could do it and we got the job done."

For his legendary Finals performance, Thomas received the Conn Smythe trophy after the game as the Finals MVP. His 1.15 goals against average for the series breaks a 56-year-old record for the lowest ever in a seven-game Finals series.

"He was on top of his game from start to finish, and especially in this final round," said head coach Claude Julien of Thomas. "He was outstanding every game. I know everybody expected him to have an average game at some point. Never came. He was in the zone, focused, never let anything rattle him and never questioned his style of play. What's happened to him right now is so deserving."

One of the greatest moments of the Bruins celebration, aside from seeing each member of the team get his time hoisting the Cup, was the re-emergence of Nathan Horton. As soon as the final buzzer sounded, Horton raced out onto the ice in full uniform to celebrate with his teammates. 

After all, if not for the violent concussion sustained by Horton in Game 3 and the subsequent rallying cry it became for the team, who knows if the Bruins could have pulled it off. 

Before the game, Horton dumped a bottle full of dirty water from Boston onto the Vancouver ice as a good-luck toast. 

"Yeah, I wanted to put that on their ice and make it out ice," said Horton, "I was trying to be sneaky but I got caught by the camera."

In a sports town eternally dominated by the Red Sox as well as the dynasty-laden Patriots and return-to-glory Celtics, Boston can now officially be dubbed Titletown with the Bruins epic Stanley Cup win. With the Bruins championship victory, Boston has now won seven titles since 2001, most of any city in America.

In addition, as a result of the Bruins magnificent postseason run, it appears Boston has caught hockey fever once again. Game 7 pulled in the highest television rating for an NHL game in 37 years.

On the flip side, while the streets of Boston were flooded with elated Bruins fans, downtown Vancouver became a dangerous war zone. Devastated by the loss, Cancucks fans rioted in the streets, flipping cars and setting fire to anything in sight. Over 150 people went to the hospital and nearly 100 others were arrested.

In the end, many of us will look back at the 2011 Boston Bruins and focus on the fact that our beloved Black and Gold restored glory to the Hub of Hockey with the first Stanley Cup Finals victory in 39 years.

However, focusing solely on the end result almost seems like an injustice to the unflappable heart and never-say-die character of the team. What made this year's Bruins team so special was not that they won, but how they did it.

They played their best hockey when it mattered most. When their backs were pushed up against the wall and all the haters and talking heads like Barry Melrose counted them out after going down 0-2 against Montreal in the first round and Vancouver in the Finals. They were led by a 37-year-old goaltender whose unrivaled journey to the NHL was just as unorthodox as his style of play. They banded together after witnessing a fallen teammate and made it a rallying cry to win it all for Horton. They had each other's backs and put the city of Boston on their big, bad shoulders.

And now they drink from the Holy Grail of hockey, erasing decades of heartache with each glorious sip.

Ask any living Red Sox fan which team was their favorite and each one will undoubtedly tell you it's 2004.

For all of us Bruins die-hards who never got a chance to see Bobby Orr hoist the Cup in 1972, this year's team is our 2004 Red Sox.

For as long as we live, no matter how many more championships the Bruins may win, nothing will ever top this team and the roller coaster ride they took us on for the better part of two months.

The Boston Bruins are champions once again.

It simply doesn't get any better than this.