By Jack Healey
Well the Toronto Raptors are the NBA champions and as was the case with the St. Louis Blues the night before they deserved it. Like St. Louis, Toronto also won three games on the road which is actually more difficult in the NBA than it is in the NHL. I went with Golden State in 6 and as I said before the series started I was tempted to go with Toronto. I should’ve! Who would’ve thought that Toronto would get an NBA champion before another Maple Leafs championship? The Maple leafs’ last championship was in 1967. I still think that Toronto fans would trade the NBA championship for the Stanley Cup championship any day.
Would the Raptors have won the championship if the Warriors were healthy? I think not, but we will never know. For the most part fans will remember only who won, not who was missing. I remember a few of the missing though:
The St. Louis Hawks beat the Celtics in the NBA Finals in 1958, but the Celtics didn’t have Bill Russell.
The NY Knicks won the championship in 1973 and beat the Celtics earlier in the playoffs, but the Celtics didn’t have John Havlicek.
The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Red Sox in the 1967 World Series, but the Red Sox didn’t have Tony Conigliaro. the Cards did have Bob Gibson however.
The Cincinnati Reds beat the Red Sox in the 1975 World Series, but the Sox didn’t have Jim Rice. The Reds did have Pete Rose, Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan however.
I mentioned yesterday that the Bruins have a record of 6-14 in the Stanley Cup Final so they really have a history of not closing the deal. The Bruins are 1-7 in the Final since winning the Stanley Cup in 1972.
Now on June 14th it is finally baseball season!
Happy Father’s day to all you dads out there!