Christmas has come and gone and New Years Day is just around the corner. During the 8 days spanning from Christmas morning to New Years morning Go, Titletown will add daily updates to an 8 part series remembering the highs lows and all around heartwarming moments of 2013 in Boston Sports as well as a look ahead to what we might see in 2014. This is not a statistical analysis of these 298 professional sporting events that took place in Boston in 2013, this is a written rehashing and a reminder that we are the greatest sports town on the planet.
Complete Schedule
December 25th- A Year of Leaders
December 26th - Best Patriots Moments
December 27th - Best Red Sox Moments
December 28th - Best Bruins Moments
December 29th - Top Plays
December 30th - Top Games
December 31st - [To be determined] Is the Boston Athlete of 2013
January 1st - The Promise of 2014
May 13th will be a day forever remembered in Boston sports as the day Patrice Bergeron scored the 21st century version of 'The Goal'.
Down by 2 with less than a minute and a half to go in the game, Claude Jullian pulled Tuukka Rask and put the fate of the Bruins on the sticks of his best players. As we now know, those best player delivered as Milan Lucic, Patrice Bergeron and Patrice Bergeron again all scored, combining to tie the game late and then win it in OT thus sending the Bruins to the 2nd round and Boston in to flat out celebration mode.
That day was the highlight of a strange year of Bruins games.
First and foremost, what gets lost in the shadows of Game Seven in Toronto as well as the other assortment of exhilarating moments of 2013 is the fact that the NHL season did not even begin until January 19th as a result of the schoolyard bully that was the 2013 NHL lockout. However while anger at the league was something that was prevalent for the many hockey fans, the Bruins did their best to regain the trust of their fans lowering ticket prices and playing like they were shot out of a cannon via their winning 14 of their first 18 games however even with that majestic start, the Bruins finished the season with the 4th seed of the Eastern Conference and went into the playoffs pitted in a story-line filled series against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Over the course of that series, we saw Tyler Seguin's career in Boston fall apart while Game Seven delivered one of the greatest moments in Bruins history.
The Bruins won that game and then won 4 more in the second round to drop the Rangers and knock John Tortorella out of the coaching job in New York. Once in the conference final, the Bruins made an effort to stick it to Jarome Iginla for choosing the Penguins over them in a mid-season trade opportunity and they surely did sweeping the best team in the east out of the playoffs and moving on to their second Cup Final in 3 seasons.
Moving into a broader lens it is no secret that the 2013 Stanley Cup Finals between the Bruins and Blackhawks rapidly turned into one of the greatest championships in the history of sports. The Cup delivered us 3 overtime games and a season that stretched father into June than any other in NHL history. We saw games that lasted 6 hours and games where 11 goals were scored but no team ever held a lead larger than 2 goals, and then we saw 17 seconds. 17 seconds where a 2-1 Boston lead turned into a 3-2 Chicago win and Boston's elimination from the playoffs.
The Bruins are a team that will strive for nothing short of a championship and while they fell just 2 wins shy of doing just that in 2013, the Bruins went into complete overhaul mode during the off-season dropping Nathan Hornton and backup Anton Khudobin while trading away stars like Rich Peverly and Tyler Seguin for a list of prospects and one star winger. Oh and by the way the Bruins finally snagged Jarome Iginla via free agency.
Riding the success of a whole new cast of characters, the Bruins ended 2013 just like they began it, winners of game after game and contenders for the NHL's ultimate prize. There was a story enclosed between these up and down games of 2013.
This is a ranking of the top 3 of those tell-tale moments...
1) May 13th: Patrice Bergeron ties Game Seven vs. Toronto
In the words of Jack Edwards, "the Bruins were getting run out of their own building" until desperation took over. Down 3 late in the game, Nathan Hornton scored to bring the Bruins within 2. However the Bruins failed to bring the score any closer and with 2 minutes to go it was clear that it was time for a last ditch effort to salvage the win. With 1:30 to go in the game, Tuukka Rask was pulled in exchange for a 6th attacker and within seconds, that immediately paid its dividends. Milan Lucic scored with 1:20 go while Patrice Bergeron tied the game via his shot through a screen with 52 seconds left. It is important to note that Rich Peverly almost won the game 20 seconds later when he grabbed the puck at the top of the crease with James Reimer down and out and roofed the puck over the net. Nothing to worry though as when Bergeron grabbed the puck in a similar situation he made no mistake in slamming it into the back of the net.
2) April 17th: Bruins fans sing national anthem following marathon attacks
2 days after their city was torn apart by one of the most terrifying acts of evil this city has even known 17,000 Bruins fans came to the TD Garden on April 17th and when they were asked to sing a rousing rendition of the Star Spangled Banner that was thousands of voices strong. The Bruins lost the ensuing game to the Sabers but even that held a magical moment for those suffering from the fallout of the bombings as the two teams both gathered at the center circle and raised their sticks to the rafters in remembrance of those who died at the finish line.
3) February 12th: Bruins score 2 in the final seconds to tie game vs. Rangers
You know the comeback where the Bruins scored 2 goals with the goalie pulled...no, the other one. On February 12th, the Bruins found themselves shutout through the first two periods of their game against the Rangers but erased that trend with goals from Milan Lucic and then Brad Marchand both with Tuukka Rask out of the Boston net. As Boston celebrated that tying goal the phrase used by NESN Jack Edwards to describe Bergeron's magic months later was actually first used there as when the play by play man first screamed "hearts of lions" he was talking about Brad Marchand not Patrice Bergeron.
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