“He’s probably thinking about other girls…”
… No, he’s thinking about when Henrik Sedin flubbed on a wide-open net — Tim Thomas at his mercy — to go up 1-0 in the first 40 seconds of Game 6 on June 13, 2011; a game that could have won the Canucks their first Stanley Cup in franchise history.
Oh, just me? Maybe this is my Roman Empire…
You don’t think about what would have happened if Dan Hamhuis didn’t get hurt throwing a ridiculously old school hip check on Milan Lucic? Or if Tampa Bay had just managed to tie Game 7 of the 2011 Eastern Conference Final against Boston, then maybe this all could have turned out differently?
I’ve accessed my repressed memories to put together the need-to-know events of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final (SCF) from the point of view of a bitter, salty, brokenhearted — and totally over it — Vancouver Canucks fan.
Games 1 and 2 of the series feel like a parallel universe. The Canucks were up two games to none, and losing four of the next five seemed impossible. Vancouver had the edge in star power; the Sedins were the league’s last two consecutive scoring leaders, and Roberto Luongo was fresh off of his Olympic gold medal. They were sharp on the power play through the first two games, which had been their bread and butter all year long.
Game 3, however, completely shifted the momentum in the Bruins’ favour, and might be my biggest sore spot of the entire series. Early in the first period, Canucks defenceman Aaron Rome levelled Bruins forward Nathan Horton with such a hard body check that the latter was knocked unconscious. Horton exited the game, and didn’t return to the series — the hit galvanizing the Bruins.
The second period began with a typical face-off win, straight back to Alexander Edler, who went to make a routine outlet pass up the boards to his winger. Edler’s stick immediately snapped in half, which sent the puck up the middle, and resulted in Andrew Ference opening the scoring for the Bruins. The game — and the series — was uphill from there.
The Bruins would take Game 3 by a score of 8-1. Rome’s hit got him suspended for four games by the National Hockey League (NHL), evidently the remainder of the series. Deemed to be a legal hit in the NHL’s suspension explanation, Rome did however make contact with Horton’s head seconds after passing the puck away, undoubtedly making it worthy of suspension. The length of which being four games, I have reservations about, and was recently noted by Sportsnet as the longest suspension in SCF history, holding the record for almost 15 years now.
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Colin Campbell was the NHL’s vice president of hockey operations in 2011, and part of his responsibilities included protecting player safety and suspending offenders. Campbell’s son, Gregory, happened to be a forward for the Boston Bruins at the time. Iconic Vancouver writer Tony Gallagher suggested before the series began that there might be a conflict of interest and was shortly after declared a “conspiracy theorist.” Colin Campbell did indeed recuse himself from his position in the series, mere hours before Game 1.
Could Campbell’s son playing on the opposite side have any impact on Rome’s suspension, or the degree of punishment? Despite not directly having his hands on the controls, Campbell would have likely had some influence on the decision.
Back in 2010, Campbell’s emails were posted online after being submitted as evidence in the dispute of an employee’s termination from the NHL. Discovered in the leaked emails was Campbell’s personal distaste for NHL forward Marc Savard. Could this distaste have impacted Campbell’s judgment to not suspend another NHL forward, Matt Cooke, when he seemingly threw a purposeful elbow at Savard — effectively ending his NHL career?
Campbell’s emails also transparently displayed his criticism of referees who penalized his son on the ice. He was known to deem players as “fake artists” in specific instances of his son being penalized, but not explicitly using any player’s names. Conspiracy theories or not, nepotism in sports is undeniable and could have leaked into the 2011 SCF.
Colin Campbell likely didn’t have any real impact on the series’ outcome — I’m not petty enough to put the Canucks’ loss on some guy sending emails. Aaron Rome certainly wasn’t a gamebreaker by anyone’s evaluation.
I haven’t been able to access the part of my brain to come up with Game 7 takes yet, they’re buried somewhere underneath the trauma, but everyone already knows how it ended anyway. With some interest rejuvenated by 2024’s squad, or newly inspired by their first real taste of playoff action this year, Vancouver can’t return to the finals soon enough. Now that Luongo has his Cup with Florida as an executive, the curse of 2011 might be over — maybe the Sedins are next.
