Trophy Town

The black and gold brought home Lord Stanley’s silver cup last week, and in doing so, they completed the four major sport championship sweep for the city of Boston.  The achievement itself is incredible but the amount of time that it took to accomplish this is what is most impressive.

Before the 2010-2011 season all other three of the major sports teams had won the championship in their respective leagues dating back to 2005, with the Patriots starting the trend and setting the standard (this was their 3^rd and most recent of their Super Bowls).   Since that time both the Red Sox and Celtics followed up with titles of their own, leaving the Bruins on an island all alone with no championships to speak of in the new millennium.

But all that changed this past week.  And with that amazing Stanley Cup playoff run, the six-year span in between the different sports championships set a new record and raised the bar of excellence and reached new heights of supremacy.  

Prior to the Bruins win the record was set at eleven years.  The bested record was previously held by New York of all places, and Boston now has to be seriously considered as the greatest sports town in America. 

The run by New York was similar to Boston’s, as the Jets got the party started in 1969 followed by the Mets (1969) and Knicks (1970), just as the Patriots (2005), Sox (2007) and Celtics (2008) did so.  But the win in Hockey didn’t come until almost ten years after the Knicks won, when the Islanders hoisted the Stanley Cup in 1980.  

The Bruins, however, didn’t feel like tacking on any more years to the 39-year drought, so they took down the Vancouver Canucks allowing Boston Bruins fans everywhere to celebrate the long anticipated victory and placing the city of Boston on the throne of the sporting world.

Making this accomplishment even more impressive is the fact that there are only four other cities in the country who can lay claim to this feat:  Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit.  Along with New York, L.A. and Chicago have multiple teams in some of the various major sports.  This obviously gives them a major advantage by increasing their odds at being able to complete this sweep (New York leads the pack with a total of seven possible sports teams with a chance to win).

Boston, of course, has only the four teams, but we’re a bunch who subscribes to the notion that quality is far better than quantity.  And as far as sport teams go, it would be very difficult to find more quality anywhere else.  

It’s a fantastic time to be a Boston sports fan and given the class of the current teams in contention year after year, that does not appear as if it’s going to change anytime soon.  Enjoy this unparalleled time of universal success.  It could very well be the most triumphant period in the history of sports.  As a Boston fan I commend our teams and thank them for allowing me to be a small part of this.  Keep up the good work!