# Let's Go Red Wings!!!



## SharkBike (Apr 15, 2005)

My life-long absolute favorite hockey team, the Detroit Red Wings, were up 3 games to 1 going into Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals on Monday.

They quickly went down by two points, but were leading by a point late in the third period.

In the final few minutes of regulation, the television showed Lord Stanley's Cup being removed from the box and being prepared for the presentation.










The home crowd was chanting, "WE WANT THE CUP" "WE WANT THE CUP".










...then...

*The frickin' Pittsburgh Penguins scored with 34 seconds left.*

The game goes into sudden death overtime...TWICE!!!

Then, in the THIRD OVERTIME PERIOD the frickin' Penguins scored and won the game.

I still haven't completely recovered from Game 5, but tonight we get Game 6 and I need everyone to chant "LET'S GO RED WINGS" "LET'S GO RED WINGS".

*I can't take a Game 7. *

LET'S GO RED WINGS!!!!


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## pg tips (May 16, 2003)

Only in America can you have 7 games to decide who wins the cup!!!

Only ever seen one *ICE* Hockey (hockey is an entirely different game) game live, I couldn't follow the puck for most of the time, the fights were quite good though!

Love slapshot, one of my all time favourite films.










I check sky sports news most mornings so will be looking for the result, hope the red wings do it!


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## MarkF (Jul 5, 2003)

PG, Top film! :lol:

Sharkey, how can any competition be remotely meaningful with a competing team called Pittsburgh Penguins? FFS! Don't get me started on "LET'S GO RED WINGS" "LET'S GO RED WINGS". How can we speak the same language but seemingly come from different planets?

I bet there were so many goals that you can't remember them. Take some advice and check in Saturday night, Switzerland V Czech Republic, there probably won't be any goals but it'll be beautiful.


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## JoT (Aug 12, 2003)

pg tips said:


> Only in America can you have 7 games to decide who wins the cup!!!


A damn sight better than a fecking penalty shoot-out!

Up here in Canada there is a great deal of angst that a Canadian team isn't in the final it is a Canadian cup after all originally presented by Lord Stanley  Hockey is an obsession here so it seems.

So to try and keep at least some claim to this years final the press are full of articles about Newfoundlander Daniel Cleary who plays for the Red Wings and Quebec's Marc-Andre Fleury the Penguins goal tender (great match he had in game 5  )


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## JoT (Aug 12, 2003)

MarkF said:


> PG, Top film! :lol:
> 
> Sharkey, how can any competition be remotely meaningful with a competing team called Pittsburgh Penguins? FFS! Don't get me started on "LET'S GO RED WINGS" "LET'S GO RED WINGS". How can we speak the same language but seemingly come from different planets?
> 
> I bet there were so many goals that you can't remember them. Take some advice and check in Saturday night, Switzerland V Czech Republic, there probably won't be any goals but it'll be beautiful.


Bradford BULLS

Wigan WARRIORS

Warrington WOLVES

Leeds RHINOS

Castleford TIGERS



At least you can associate Penguins with ice ..... but rhinos in Leeds and tigers is Castleford? :lol: :lol:


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## adrian (May 23, 2004)

I don't have any preference since there is no Canadian team in the race.

JoT, you should have seen last year when Ottawa was in the final.


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## SharkBike (Apr 15, 2005)

MarkF said:


> PG, Top film! :lol:
> 
> Sharkey, how can any competition be remotely meaningful with a competing team called Pittsburgh Penguins? FFS! Don't get me started on "LET'S GO RED WINGS" "LET'S GO RED WINGS". How can we speak the same language but seemingly come from different planets?
> 
> I bet there were so many goals that you can't remember them. Take some advice and check in Saturday night, Switzerland V Czech Republic, there probably won't be any goals but it'll be beautiful.


Markey, I gotta agree with you about the Penguins...a damn silly name for a hockey team, but Pittsburgh is, without question, one of the top teams in the NHL.

"LET'S GO RED WINGS" is an old chant that fans have been shouting at every game for years and years....it may not be perfect Queen's English, but we're talking about Detroit and hockey, not poetry and prose.

I heard somewhere that the average hockey score is something like 3-2. I don't give a rat's ass if the score is 1-0...if the Wings win tonight it'll be beautiful indeed.

GO WINGS!!!


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## adrian (May 23, 2004)

Congratulations, Red Wings. Great game. 



pg tips said:


> Only ever seen one *ICE* Hockey (hockey is an entirely different game) game live, I couldn't follow the puck for most of the time, the fights were quite good though!


Last year the NHL commission made an inquiry and said that players under 8 y.o. shouldn't fight on ice anymore because they give the wrong example to the league players. :lol:


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## MarkF (Jul 5, 2003)

JoT said:


> Bradford BULLS
> 
> Wigan WARRIORS
> 
> ...


Indeed :lol:



SharkBike said:


> I heard somewhere that the average hockey score is something like 3-2. I don't give a rat's ass if the score is 1-0...if the Wings win tonight it'll be beautiful indeed.
> 
> GO WINGS!!!


Realliy, I thought it was 10-13 or something. :tongue2: Hope you enjoyed the game


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## pg tips (May 16, 2003)

Well done Red Wings


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## SeattleMike (Apr 22, 2008)

I'm happy detroit won. They deserve a break and it makes up for the pretty sad record of the Tigers this season.

Maybe next year there'll be a canadian team in the final?


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## SharkBike (Apr 15, 2005)

WOOOO HOOOOOOOO!!!!


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## SharkBike (Apr 15, 2005)

*Wings' champs deal death blow to 'weak' Euro myths*

BY DREW SHARP â€¢ DETROIT FREE PRESS COLUMNIST â€¢ June 5, 2008

PITTSBURGH -- It's always virtuous exposing a prejudice, regardless of how trivial, to the light of common sense.

The private whispers that European hockey players couldn't do this or wouldn't do that were worthy of the stable room floor. But such nonsense still existed incrementally within North American hockey cliques, because there was never any irrefutable evidence to contradict that myopic thinking.

That is, until Wednesday night.

The Wings didn't just win a Stanley Cup.

They shattered a preconception.

"We never believed all that talk," said Nicklas Lidstrom. "We knew how badly we wanted this and how hard we had to work for it. But it's like anything else. You've got to win to change that kind of thinking."

Normally unflappable emotionally, Lidstrom admitted a few tears rolled down his cheeks when NHL commissioner Gary Bettman summoned him to carry out a team captain's proudest assignment -- receive the Stanley Cup.

And if there were any remaining questions before, becoming the first European-born Stanley Cup winning captain assures Lidstrom a place within the select pantheon of hockey elitism.

This was a historic night.

It was a rewarding night.

The Wings became the first predominantly European team to win the Stanley Cup. They became the first Cup winner to not have at least one North American-born player among its five playoff point producers.

"That finally gets put to rest," said Henrik Zetterberg, the deserving Conn Smythe Award winner. "All you heard was how (Europeans) aren't tough enough. It didn't help when we lost early in past playoffs. But this should prove what we already knew about ourselves."

Detroit should take special pride in these champions because ours is a city accustomed to answering critics and silencing doubters.

Take that, Don Cherry!

"Those guys have definitely got something in here," said owner Mike Ilitch, tapping his chest. "Nobody can ever again question how badly they want to reach this level. I'm proud that Detroit is part of this because, you're right, it is historic. It's truly something special."

As Zetterberg's 13th playoff goal slipped through Pittsburgh goalie Marc-Andre Fleury's legs in the third period, there, too, went the last vestige of a tired, nonsensical fable that European players cared more about winning Olympic gold or world championships than the most recognizable symbol of hockey aristocracy.

"This is the biggest thing you can do in hockey, getting the Stanley Cup," said Tomas Holmstrom. "We knew that in Sweden. I'm sure this is going to be a big deal there. There's going to be a lot of celebrating back there."

There's the standard stereotypical blather like "the Europeans aren't genetically equipped" for the physical and mental demands of wanting the Stanley Cup more than anything else. There's another about how "the Europeans don't possess the work ethic" or that "the Europeans take the lazy approach" of holding onto the puck instead knocking it free from their opponent.

Substitute the word "Europeans" for the word "Negroes" and you'd think you stumbled upon the dialogue from a southern segregationist manifesto from 50 years ago.

There's nothing hateful regarding this hockey parochialism.

Nobody's taking fire hoses to those of Nordic ethnicity. Nor is anybody searching for the nearest sturdy tree limb.

But it's prejudice nonetheless.

And there's a common thread woven through every form of such chauvinism -- fear.

Fear that somebody's challenging your position. Fear that somebody's challenging your power. Fear feeds irrationality.

Hockey will always remain Canada's game, but this championship validates that dominance is no longer a birthright.

The NHL should be proud today. It boasts of its global reach and how its diverse international flavor makes it stand out from other professional sports. But it's only now with this Wings' championship and its cosmopolitan flair that it could truly live up to that ideal.

"I'm very proud being the first European captain to win the Cup," Lidstrom said, still lugging the 35-pound trophy on the ice about 30 minutes after the game. "It's great that Hank got the Conn Smythe. It's a great day."

It was a Swede night.


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## jasonm (Nov 22, 2003)

Good on you 'ol red wings..

Glad your team came through Rich


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## JoT (Aug 12, 2003)

Rich do you grow a beard in post-season as well?


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## SharkBike (Apr 15, 2005)

JoT said:


> Rich do you grow a beard in post-season as well?


No, but my brother does...and he MUST sit in his lucky chair with his lucky shirt and his lucky underwear, etc....for every game.


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## SharkBike (Apr 15, 2005)

The boy can't quite manage a beard yet, but he's got spirit...


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