Adrian Dater
Nineteen years. Nineteen years ago, tonight. It seems like a thousand years ago, honestly. But the memories of Ray Bourque winning the Stanley Cup, in the final game of his brilliant 22-year career, still blaze bright.
That picture you see above is of Bourque shaving off his playoff beard, following that Game 7 3-1 Avalanche victory over the New Jersey Devils, June 9, 2001. Bourque was going to shave it off following the game regardless, but how sweet must it have been to be him, staring in the mirror, razor in hand, saying, “Finally, it happened.”
Joe Sakic, handing the Cup off to Bourque, remains one of hockey’s best feel-good moments, unless you were a Devils fan.
I’ve written a lot about that night, and most longtime readers here have probably heard most of it before.
Mostly, I’m just amazed at how much has changed in the world since that night. Three months later, the whole world was changed by the events of 9-11. Today, we’re in the midst of a global pandemic, with social unrest in our streets. Seems like a much simpler time then, if you are old enough to remember, right?
My own memories of that night remain undimmed. It was such an electrifying atmosphere in the Pepsi Center that night. Personally, I thought the Avs were going to lose. They had lost the rubber Game 5 just a few nights before at the Pepsi Center, don’t forget. They pulled out the win in Game 6, thanks solely to Patrick Roy’s brilliance in the first period at the Meadowlands.
Bourque had had so many crushing playoff exits before, including the one the year before in a Game 7 of the Western Finals in Dallas, a game in which a Bourque point shot was tipped by Adam Deadmarsh and deflected off the post as time expired in a 3-2 loss. I thought that fate just didn’t want Bourque to win one, and in those days I was a big believer in sports fate – in a negative sense – going back to my days as a Boston fan (None of the Boston teams had gone on their championship runs at this point, remember).
But…it happened. The Avs and Ray Bourque won the damn thing! I’ll never forget the final seconds, as they ticked off the clock (the final 10 minutes, by the way, seemed to take about 500 hours). I just remember Adam Foote beating his stick against the ice in front of Roy, and then the massive mob of happy Avs that enveloped them, with Bourque included.
In talking to many Avs players in the years since, almost all of them said they were very confident going into the game. Sakic, in fact, had gone up to Bourque on the plane ride home after Game 6 and wanted to rehearse how he might hand over the Cup. Bourque was like “Let’s win the damn thing first, Joe!”
The only player who confessed to being as pessimistic as I was, was Foote. When I talked to him a few months ago in a podcast, he said he was just, yeah, not overly confident. Not that he didn’t think they could win, mind you, but he just wanted to win it for Ray so badly, that he thought he wanted it too much and therefore might get his heart broken. Keep in mind: this was an Avs team that had lost THREE straight Game 7s to end their seasons.
I’ve been in a few championship dressing rooms, but this was the happiest. So much joy on the faces of everyone, especially when they gandered over at Bourque’s locker, the Cup sitting by his side. The Avs would have a party at the Chop House after the game, and Bourque was allowed to take the Cup to his home – a special honor not given to most players.
Bourque had a lot of friends in town, and he actually drove them all home in a big van following the party at the Chop House.
Believe it or not, Bourque’s next-door neighbor at the time was a big Devils fan. He and his family had a Devils flag flying outside their porch, actually. At about 3 in the morning, Bourque and his kids rang the neighbor’s doorbell and invited him out to an honest-to-goodness Stanley Cup party in the middle of their street. The neighbor was gracious about it all, and the party lasted until about 6 a.m. A huge cooler of beer and wine was in the middle of the street, and most of the other neighbors came out of their houses and partook in what no doubt has to go down as one of the most unique street parties in Colorado history.
Whenever I ask Avs fans what their all-time favorite memory is, it’s of this game – and why shouldn’t it? Let’s all raise our cups tonight and toast to it again. This one’s for you, Ray.