Stanley Cup

When I was a kid I wanted to be ... A SURGEON!"When was in sixth grade, I broke my finger. I had to go to the doctor's office. That's when I decided I wanted to be a surgeon. I liked the idea of helping people with sports injuries."Mark Brunell,quarterback, Jacksonville JaquarsWE'RE NUMBER 2!We know you know the winning teams and players in sports. But do you know the runners-up? Pictured below are there 1999 champions. Circle the letter of each second-place finisher.1. Super bowl champion Denver Broncos.

With the beginning of the Stanley Cup Finals tonight (Channel 45, 8 o'clock), the curtain begins to come down on Fox's relationship with the NHL, and to call it tempestuous is to put it mildly.The network and the league seemed to butt heads continually during their five-year marriage, and the parting, while amicable, isn't exactly smooth.For one thing, during the course of the relationship, Fox officials were repeatedly rebuffed as they asked the league to make subtle changes to make the game more appealing to television audiences.

We're Number 2We know you know the winning teams and players in sports. But do you know the runners-up? Pictured below are three 1999 champions. Circle the letter of each second-place finisher.1. Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos. Which team lost the Super Bowl?A. New York GiantsB. Detroit LionsC. Atlanta Falcons2. Stanley Cup champion Dallas Stars. Which team did the Stars beat for the Stanley Cup?A. Buffalo SabresB. Detroit Red WingsC. New York Rangers3. French Open tennis champion Steffi Graf.

DALLAS -- With a black-and-blue line and a touch of gray, the Dallas Stars are one victory away from Stanley Cup silver.Darryl Sydor scored a power-play goal in the second period and the Stars, the oldest team in the playoffs, held off the Buffalo Sabres, 2-0, in yet another tightly played game last night for a 3-2 series lead in the Stanley Cup Finals."

Last week, The Dallas Morning News sent a reporter to Buffalo, N.Y., as part of its effort to introduce its sunbaked readers to the mysteries of that strange foreign phenomenon, the Stanley Cup Finals.What the reporter found, in contrast to the habitual cockiness of Dallas fans, was Buffalonian after Buffalonian picking the Stars to win the series, muttering muted thanks that the Sabres had at least got this far, and expressing the cautious hope that maybe, just maybe, if all the planets queue up properly in the firmament, the locals will scratch out victory and finally bring some positive national attention to their small corner of the Niagara Frontier.

WASHINGTON -- A little more than 18 minutes remained in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals last night, but by that time the Detroit Red Wings had overpowered the Washington Capitals and their fans had taken over MCI Center.As the Red Wings put a finishing exclamation point on this championship sweep with a brilliant two-on-one power-play goal by Doug Brown that emphasized the Red Wings' power and might with 1: 32 gone in the final period, their fans drowned out the Capitals' faithful with chants of "Vladi, Vladi".

WASHINGTON -- A little over 18 minutes remained in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals, but by that time the Detroit Red Wings had overpowered the Washington Capitals and their fans had taken over MCI Center.As the Red Wings put a finishing exclamation point on this championship sweep with a brilliant two-on-one power-play goal by Doug Brown that emphasized the Red Wings' power and might with 1: 32 gone in the final period, their fans drowned out the Capitals' faithful with chants of "Vladi, Vladi."

The Washington Capitals awoke yesterday with mixed emotions. It was the day after they had seen their dream of a Stanley Cup championship cut short by the Detroit Red Wings. They found themselves filled with a mingling of disappointment, pride and even compassion for their conquerors.Peter Bondra, the NHL's leading goal-scorer over the past three years, was at home like most of his teammates, sorting out the positives and negatives following a 4-1 loss Tuesday that completed Detroit's four-game sweep.

WASHINGTON -- The Detroit Red Wings had celebrated a Stanley Cup before. They'd put away the frustration of 42 long years. But last night, even before Game 4, the final game in this sweep, was in the books as a 4-1 victory and the second Cup was in their hands, the emotion of all they had overcome to get back to this pinnacle swelled up and overpowered the Washington Capitals. And the Red Wings' fans took over the MCI Center.As the Red Wings put an exclamation point on this championship with a brilliant two-on-one power- play goal by Doug Brown that emphasized their dominance, with 1: 32 gone in the final period, their fans drowned out the Capitals faithful with chants of "Vlady, Vlady."

ESPN hockey analyst Bill Clement says the Washington Capitals could be "America's Anonymous Team," just as the Dallas Cowboys are "America's Team." Back when Clement played for the Capitals, he probably wished to have been anonymous.After two Stanley Cup championship years with the Philadelphia Flyers, Clement was dealt to Washington for the 1975-76 campaign, a season in which the second-year Caps could muster only 11 wins and 10 ties in 80 games, one of many, shall we say, lean seasons for the franchise.

WASHINGTON - -There have been precious few events in Washington sports like the one that will take place tonight at Verizon Center, and the heroes in years past have names such as Dale Hunter, a Washington Capitals great, because he once scored an overtime winner to keep a season alive. Painfully, the villains include guys like Pat LaFontaine, the New York Islander who unforgettably turned an April morning miserable for Washington fans, because he scored in the fourth overtime, ending a never-ending game, not to mention the Capitals' season.

As shots go, the ones provided by the Pittsburgh Penguins' Max Talbot and Petr Sykora on Monday night were shots in the arm for the NHL in general, even if they left the Detroit Red Wings smarting. Thanks to Talbot's game-tying goal with 35 seconds left in regulation and Sykora's winner from the right circle on a power play in the third overtime, the NHL will keep skating for at least one more game. The Penguins-Red Wings Stanley Cup Finals move back to Pittsburgh for Game 6 tonight with Detroit leading 3-2. The importance of extending the series is in no small way attached to TV ratings, a huge consideration in the pro sports universe.

Game 5 ended too late to be included in this edition. Go to www.baltimoresun.com for coverage. DETROIT --Plan B has worked out pretty well for the Detroit Red Wings. The NHL's top-seeded team planned to put Dominik Hasek in goal during the playoffs and keep him there. "Dom is not going to struggle," Detroit coach Mike Babcock said the day before the postseason started, attempting to shoot down a question about the possibility of playing Chris Osgood. But when Hasek struggled against the Nashville Predators, Babcock benched the six-time Vezina Trophy winner in favor of Osgood during Game 4 of the first round.

"Wouldn't be the first time the Stanley Cup was covered in alcohol." Brad May Anaheim Ducks left wing, on having the Cup sterilized via an alcohol-based antiseptic before it was brought into the room of a cancer patient in Orange County, Calif.

Are you paying attention to the Stanley Cup Finals? You couldn't write a better script. Bone-jarring checks, fast, wide-open scoring, a game-changing penalty-shot goal. It had it all. Even a fan named Stanley Cup! Neil Riordan Timonium I have paid even less attention to the Stanley Cup than I will to the FIFA World Cup. That would be none. Jim Kirby Columbia Sure, as long as it doesn't conflict with something more important, such as Deal or No Deal or one of those classic O's-Devil Rays matchups.

TORONTO - Leave it to a 17-year-old to most eloquently capture the meaning of hockey in this country, feelings that faxes and counterproposals and salary cap figures can never touch. "Being Canadian, hockey is in your blood," John Jenkins said yesterday afternoon. "You walk around here, you see the faces and names you loved when you were growing up. You see the statistics you memorized. "Hockey is a part of our life from the time we're born. I remember my Dad used to watch it with me every Saturday night on Hockey Night in Canada.

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. - Chris Chelios would like to turn back the clock 15 years. That might give him time to win another Stanley Cup, a Norris Trophy or an Olympic hockey medal. It also might have given him more of a chance to go to the 2006 Winter Games as a member of the Greek bobsled team. The 42-year-old Detroit Red Wings defenseman says that while he's enjoying the diversion bobsled training presents from the NHL lockout, he really believes Laird Hamilton has a better shot of making the Greek team.

TAMPA, Fla. - Who's laughing now? The Tampa Bay Lightning, the laughingstock of the NHL up until three years ago, a team four years removed from back-to-back 19-win seasons, a team the Florida Panthers used to torment for kicks, will have its name engraved on the Stanley Cup. With a nail-biting 2-1 victory last night over the Calgary Flames in Game 7, the Lightning, the Eastern Conference's best team throughout the regular season, became the first 1990s...

AMERICA ONLINE kingpin Ted Leonsis has been called a lot of things -- especially since AOL's marriage to Time Warner plummeted the darling NASDAQ stock 1,000 acres below the Mendoza line. So the merger between new and old media didn't win the new economy's equivalent of Lord Stanley's Cup. But Leonsis is Exhibit A of what's wrong with the National Hockey League. It didn't go unnoticed by the Washington Capitals' owner that a big spread in The New York Times featured Leonsis' unfortunate misadventure with a Capitals fan this season as the lead item.

CHICAGO - By going to the Stanley Cup Finals, the Tampa Bay Lightning and Calgary Flames offer evidence that signing high-salaried free agents isn't necessarily the way to go. Both finalists began the season with low-budget payrolls. On the NHL's 30-team salary scale, the Lightning was 21st at $33,535,379 and the Flames were 19th at $35,247,950. And Calgary's figure is somewhat misleading because $7.5 million went to Jarome Iginla. Meanwhile, the Lightning and Flames are classic examples of building a strong core group through the draft and then enhancing the nucleus by making good trades and picking up productive free agents.