Finals Week has now concluded and with its passage, the last remnants of our winter season have withered under the June sun. For one thing, the school year is ending across America. My two oldest sons just finished final exams and our town's school system has set them loose for a summer of, "Dad, I'm bored." For another thing, it is the end of the winter sports schedule.
The Carolina Hurricanes got their passing grades on Monday evening. They survived a near meltdown to become the fourth transient franchise in the last eleven seasons to win their first Stanley Cup in a new city. As Hartford joined Minneapolis and Quebec City in lamenting what could have been, Glen Wesley has become the latest former Bruins defenseman to experience what finally is, sipping from the Cup for the first time in his 18-year career. Even a non-partisan observer such as myself finds thrill in witnessing the uninhibited joys of first-time success.
Edmonton, on the other hand, will be held back for a year. The Oilers earned an "A" in achievement as they became the first eight-seed ever to make it to the Stanley Cup Finals. However, they failed Power Plays 101, finishing with five goals in 46 opportunities, three coming in Game 6. As if that weren't a sufficient indictment, how about 0-for-5 in two-man advantages — including a potential 1:56 double-man advantage in the second period of Game 7 that was squandered within a minute by Ryan Smyth's hooking call?
The cramped style of play that Oilers coach Craig MacTavish adopted in the playoffs may have enabled this eight-seed to overachieve into June, but it did not make entertaining theatre for hundreds of thousands of potential bubble fans like me who anticipated a more open game as advertised by league rules changes last summer. I came to believe that shooting the puck into your opponent's thigh pads was a new objective of those rules changes. And we neophytes responded with Nielsen ratings of 1.7 and 2.0 in the first two NBC broadcasts, an "F" in any grade book.
Remember back on those school days passed, as your whole class was kept after because someone carved "Teacher Sucks" into the wooden desktop? Well, Mark Cuban did some carving of his own, and it might well have been the epitaph to his Dallas Mavericks' season. The outspoken owner was that kid in the front row who always talks without being called upon or even raising his hand. But the more he talked, the more the Miami Heat walked to the free throw line and their first ever NBA title.
It's safe to say that the Finals' referee crew elevated the Heat's Dwyane Wade to a national treasure, sending him to the line 25 times in Sunday's pivotal Game 5. As talent goes, this crew is every bit on par with the newfound object of their affection, creating scoring opportunities for Wade where even he falls short. With the Heat down by one in Sunday's overtime period, there was no way Wade wasn't getting the ball. Nor was there any way he wasn't going to the line. Dirk Nowitzki just happened to be a convenient medium.
Now, these officials certainly possess more versatility than to relegate their vengeance to mere foul-calling. Their arsenal, which includes a czar-like power to suspend, can apparently pierce the player-coach privilege. This striped crew eavesdropped into an intimate conversation between Dallas forward Josh Howard and coach Avery Johnson held in front of 20,145 people as Cuban, who was doing his best to show them up in his Jerry Stackhouse jersey, began demonstratively protesting Nowitzki's near-fatal foul in front of a national television audience. Dallas was awarded their final time-out without ever raising their hand, thereby making it 47 feet less probable Cuban's men would eke one out.
Game, Heat. Advantage, Heat. Then Tuesday night: Match, Heat.
It's hard to recall that, only one week ago to the day, Dallas reached its high-water mark. They had aced their first two exams and were 6:15 away from a third. But there was more than ticks of a clock standing between them and an insurmountable lead. There was Dwyane Wade, perhaps the postseason successor to Michael Jordan in the making. With 127 points over the next 155 playing minutes, Wade reversed the series and engineered only the third 0-2 comeback in NBA Finals history. Perhaps Mark Cuban should have worn a No. 3 jersey during Tuesday night's swan song.
Indeed, that game proved to be all that was left of this Finals Week, 2006. The kids are home, the house is a mess, the refrigerator empty. The ice at the RBC Center in Raleigh has been reduced to a puddle with a Sacagawea golden dollar coin sitting at the bottom of it. And now, the custodian has made his final rounds at the American Airlines Arena and flipped the light switch on his way out
It was a week I enjoyed: alternating nights of the NBA and NHL sharing the prime-time stage, a Thunderdome fight for Nielsen supremacy, color analysts collected from retirement homes and Manpower lines across the country, relief from American Idol and three helpings of Deal Or No Deal. Best of all, it was Dad's Night In, a quiet time to retreat from the long day and revel in the one basal pleasure that has followed me from boyhood.
The summer to come will bring pleasures quite different. They will come without the quiet, and they will come at the behest of others wishing to combat the ennui of adolescence. They are a welcome reminder of the fullness of my life now, but it is a fullness that nevertheless finds momentary void this time each year.
Leave a Comment