We've got our first All-Original Six Stanley Cup Final since 1979. It's hard to believe, yet it feels so right. The Original Six are the heart of hockey. The fabric of the league. Sure, every sport has its "old-school" teams that date back to the founding of the league, but there's something different about the Original Six. The Blackhawks, Bruins, Canadiens, Maple Leafs, Rangers and Red Wings ARE the NHL.
These six franchises will forever be intertwined. For the most part, all those kids growing up skating on frozen Canadian ponds want to play for one of the six. Every legendary player in NHL history wore the sweater of at least one Original Six team, and it's still a shock when one of them doesn't make the playoffs (even though this year was the first time since 1996 that all six did). They're the ones in the big cities. With the rich histories. And the rabid fan bases. And the cool logos (all of which have been pretty much the same for many, many years). Even the buildings are legendary!
Of course, the Original Six were the only teams in the NHL for 25 years. From 1942-67, they played 70 games a year against each other, only to eliminate two teams. Then there were three intense seven-game series for the Stanley Cup. I'm not saying the NHL Expansion in 1967-68 was a bad thing. But there's still something about a Canadiens-Leafs or Rangers-Bruins or Red Wings-Blackhawks game that's special. Everybody knows it, too. Even when they did that first expansion, they put all of the Original Six in one division and the six new teams in the other, resulting in the Blues reaching the Final in their first three years of existence.
Expansion was something inevitable in the NHL, and it, of course was good for the league. They couldn't keep the game limited to six cities, just like they couldn't limit the talent pool to just 120 players. Not with the amount of fans across the continent and the quality of players around the world. But seeing any game involving two of the Original Six gives you that feeling of nostalgia.
That's also why it's so fun to see the Original Six do well. The Canadiens have more Stanley Cups than anybody. But most of those came when they were dominating the other five. They haven't won in 20 years, which is the last win by any Canadian team. How crazy will people go when the NHL's landmark franchise finally hoists the most famous trophy in sports again? It'll probably only be matched by the delirium in Toronto when the Leafs finally win again. The team in the largest city in the country that invented the sport hasn't even been to the Final since 1967, the last pre-expansion season!
I'll never forget June 14, 1994. It's crazy to think that it was almost 20 years ago. Same thing with Blackhawks fans when they won three years ago, and Bruins fans when they snapped their 30-year drought the following season. I can only imagine what it'll be like for Cubs fans if and when they win the World Series again, but I would figure it'll be something like what Red Sox fans experienced a decade ago. Baseball has its iconic franchises. So does hockey. Six of them. But the NHL's sextet aren't known most for their ineptitude. They're immediately thought of as a group, and it thinking of them brings people back to a simpler time.
They're killing the Red Wings-Blackhawks rivalry with next year's realignment, but they're also creating a division that features two-thirds of the Original Six. That's why we've got to enjoy this Final while we can. Sure, it hasn't happened in 34 years, so we've got the novelty element of it, but we also know it's possible that we might have to wait that long for it to happen again. Unless they move Detroit back to the West or change the playoff format, the only way to have an All-Original Six Final starting next season would be to have the Blackhawks win the West.
While I like the idea of the Original Six division, my biggest problem with next year's realignment is exactly that. The Blackhawks are going to be all alone in the West. Sure, they've developed new rivalries with teams like St. Louis, but we're not going to have Blackhawks-Red Wings anymore. Just like we won't have Syracuse-UConn anymore. Both seem wrong.
But there's something right about this year's Final. It's almost enough to make us all forget that this season started three and a half months late because of yet another ridiculous lockout. Yet we did have hockey. And we ended up with a classic, old school matchup for the Cup. I can't wait.
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