The Stanley Cup playoffs start tonight, gluing hockey fans to their radio and television sets for the next couple of months, depending on how far the Canadian teams go.
It's fitting that the playoffs start tonight, since April 30 is a sacred day on the Vancouver Canucks calendar. On that day in 1994, the greatest game in team history was played, featuring both the best save ever made by a Canucks goalie and the best goal ever scored by a Canuck.
The fact that the Canucks made it to Game 7 in their series against the Calgary Flames that year was already a miracle. Down three games to one, the Canucks won both the fifth and sixth games of the series in overtime to force the seventh and deciding game.
And then that game went into overtime, too.
Canucks fans had seen this movie before - or so they thought.
Five years earlier, in 1989, the Canucks had forced the Flames into sudden-death overtime in Game 7, only to lose when Joel Otto, standing in the crease, had the puck go off his skate and in.
The heartbreak, however, belonged to Alberta in 1994.
Captain Kirk stole the series from the Flames at 8:17 of the first overtime when he stopped Robert Reichel's one-timer with a toe save on the goal line. It was such an unbelievable save that the goal judge behind McLean turned the red light on but the replay clearly showed McLean made the stop.
That remains The Save in Canucks history.
The Goal came a period later, two minutes and 20 seconds into the second overtime, when Pavel Bure, the Russian Rocket, took a perfect pass while in full flight from defenceman Jeff Brown and went in alone at top speed on Flames goalie. Bure went backhand, Vernon went with him, then Bure brought the puck back to his forehand and tucked it into the net, before throwing his stick into the air in pure joy.
The Canucks, unfortunately, don't play tomorrow. They will start their Stanley Cup campaign on Wednesday against the San Jose Sharks, a team they last played (and beat) in the playoffs two years on their way to the final against the Boston Bruins.
Over in the east, the long-suffering Toronto Maple Leafs return to the playoffs for the first time in nine years Wednesday, against a still-tough Bruins team led by the blue line brick wall better known as Zdeno Chara, a former Prince George Cougar.
On Thursday night, the Montreal Canadiens, with Carey Price of Anahim Lake in goal, bid for their first cup in 20 years against the Ottawa Senators in an all-Canadian matchup. The 1993 Canadiens, with Patrick Roy in net that year, were the last Canadian team to win the Cup.
Each year at the start of the playoffs, Canadian hockey fans indulge themselves in a dream that hasn't come true since 1989 - two Canadian teams playing in the Stanley Cup final. That was the year the Flames (after beating the Canucks on the cruel Joel Otto goal) went on to beat the Canadiens in the final.
Wouldn't it be great to see the Canucks face the Canadiens or the Leafs for the Stanley Cup this June?
Sadly, Las Vegas doesn't believe it will happen. Bookies have the Canadiens at 12-1, the Canucks at 14-1 and the Leafs at a lowly 20-1 odds of winning the Stanley Cup.
Still, if there's a time to dream, it's before the first puck is dropped in the playoffs, that Price will bring the cup to the Cariboo, that the Senators or the Canucks will win their first cups in franchise history (and Dan Hamhuis will bring the cup through Prince George on his way to his hometown of Smithers) or that the Leafs will win for the first time since 1967.
A great playoffs this spring, especially if a Canadian team went the distance, would take away the last of the anger fans have about the lockout and the shortened season.
Here's hoping.
