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Wednesday, 15 June 2011 11:00

Written by Seth Rorabaugh

If you're a mostly neutral party, finding a rooting interest in this Stanley Cup Final has been difficult. Neither team is all that likeable. With the Canucks, you get the diving of the Sedins, the foot-in-mouth quotes from Roberto Luongo and the general slime-balltuity (That's a word. We're journalists. Trust us.) of Maxime Lapierre.

With the Bruins, you get... well... Boston.

Clearly, humanity in general has no horse to bet on in this race.

The Bruins themselves are a decent bunch of humans for the most part. If you're a Penguins fan, you might be rooting for old man Mark Recchi (right) to get one last Stanley Cup ring.

And Andrew Ference, another former Penguin, is going for his first Cup ring.

In comparison to the Canucks, the Big Bad Bruins like Zdeno Chara, Milan Lucic and others have been mostly inert teddy bears.

The only Bruins player who is even anything close to being despicable is Brad Marchand who proclaimed himself a "rat." But he even managed to do that in a cute, cuddly way.

And how can anyone outside the Pacific Northwest root against Tim Timmy Thomas? He's an everyman. He looks like one of us. A regular guy. You probably could go to that dek hockey rink on Route 22 in Murrysville and find 17 guys who look like Tim Thomas. It wouldn't shock us a great deal to see Thomas sitting on the tailgate of his truck in the parking lot after the game sipping on a red Gatorade and smoking a Marlboro.

His counterpart, Vancouver's Luongo (right), looks like a villain from the 'Jason Bourne' movies. And he has had approximately the same success rate as one of those characters as well. It wouldn't shock us a great deal to see Luongo sitting in a cafe after the game sipping cappuccino while reading a classified dossier with instructions on how to kill his next target.

But... it's Boston. The same self-important Boston which likes to tell the rest of the world how much better it is than everyone else at everything. Including at being self important.

The same Boston which gave us Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy who told us this year's Winter Classic in Pittsburgh wasn't as good as the previous year's Winter Classic in Boston. Because it wasn't in Boston.

And it's the same Boston which gave us this horrendous spoof of Wiz Khalifa's "Black and and Yellow:

Worshiping of Jack Edwards? Check.

Sense of self entitlement? Check.

Obligatory Red Sox mention? Check.

The characteristics of your typically loathsome Boston fan are all present.

That brings us back to Vancouver. A franchise forever cursed with mostly ugly jerseys did have one brief, bright period of aesthetically-pleasing outfits in the early- to mid-1990s. That apparently provided the inspiration for "Black Red Yellow:"

Anything which combines old school Pavel Bure and Trevor Linden jerseys with a Vancouver Grizzlies jersey has to be on the side of good. On top top of that, the "Black Red Yellow" version actually looks like something you would see on VH1. The quality and effort is evident. The Boston version of "Black and Yellow" is just some wannabe Southie poseur rhyming "goaltender" with "middle finger" while setting it to some fuzzy clips swiped off YouTube.

Begrudgingly, we'll be rooting for the Black Red Yellow tonight, even if it's now blue and green.

(Photo: Top-Bruce Bennett/Getty Images; Recchi-Elsa/Getty Image; Luongo-Jason Hayward/Canadian Press)

Comments (9)

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written by Disgruntled Goat, June 15, 2011 - 11:19 AM

Wow, That's way too much thinking. Too much thinking hurts the brain. Go with the gut. My gut is saying "Go Broons!"....and "LUNCH!"
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You almost had me with Jack Edwards.

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written by kpa42, June 15, 2011 - 12:39 PM

I've got to root for Boston Somewhere among rooting for Recchi, VASTLY prefering Timmy Thomas to Luongo and wanting to see Chara put Lord Stanley in the arena rafters with his 747-equivalent wingspan, I can't find a reason to root for the Cannucks. They seem devoid of real heart to me. If they win, they'll have pulled off one of the most lackluster, sad performances that I've personally seen in Stanley Cup Final play. They will have defined "backing into" the championship. And I say nuts to that!

As far as the Black and Yellow thing...I hated the song when it was bumping non-stop in Pittsburgh. Age has not softened this opinion. It's awful either way.

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written by kpa42, June 15, 2011 - 12:54 PM

Hmm. I may be over-critical with that last statement about Vancouver. Lackluster isn't necessarily fair, they've pitched multiple shutouts and played well enough. But for a team that lead the league in -practically- all categories (at least we played spoiler there!) they're really underwhelming.

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written by Uli, June 15, 2011 - 01:00 PM

I´ll stay with Boston despite the overweight female Red Sox fans.

Hopefully next year in June, we don´t have to discuss if we rather root for black and yellow or red and white or green and purple. Then we just say: GO PENS GO!!!

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written by Boom Shaka, June 15, 2011 - 01:26 PM

Can't say I want root for either team...at this point I guess you could say I'm "rooting" for the Bruins, because of Tim Thomas. He just seems like a helluva guy who kept his mouth shut and busted his a** for years to get a shot. He's got it now and deserves to win.

I would also LOVE to see an SCF between the Canucks and Pens. My how the hate would flow. There'd be plenty of talent on the ice, and lots of rough stuff to go with it.

I think the "battle" between obnoxious Canucks fans and Pens fans would be epic!

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written by snickers99, June 15, 2011 - 02:14 PM

Gotta root for the Bruins here. I admit...I have a man crush on Timmy Thomas. How can you not? The guy's a hard working, blue collar guy who loves to get out there and run into people.

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written by Uli, June 15, 2011 - 02:46 PM

There´s more talking coming out of Vancouver:

Daniel Sedin guaranteed a victory in game 7.

As far as I can remember Messier did the same in the 1994 playoffs. He delivered a hattrick in this specific game.

Let´s see what Daniel Sedin can do tonight...

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written by eman41, June 15, 2011 - 03:46 PM

I like Thomas, but I hate Boston. I like Kesler, but I hate Lapierre.

Let's just have it go to OT for maximum free hockey.

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written by Matt Eager, June 15, 2011 - 04:47 PM

Boston fans may be more annoying, but ultimately for me it comes down to the only guys that matter: the ones that get to hoist Lord Stanley's silver when the game is over. For that reason, I'm 100% behind the Bruins, if only for tonight.

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