There seems to be a pretty simple formula if you want a jet-setting, travel-heavy Stanley Cup finals: simply add the Vancouver Canucks. Travis Hughes of SBNation points out that the team’s three Cup finals appearances (including the 2011 edition against the Boston Bruins, which begins Wednesday on Versus at 8 p.m. ET) rank in the top five most traveled final rounds in NHL history.
The Bruins and Canucks will travel approximately 2,504 miles when they change venues, the longest trip for a Cup finals series in the NHL’s modern era and second longest of all-time, according to Hughes. Vancouver’s 1994 series against the New York Rangers clocked in at fifth place all-time (2,429 miles) while the 1982 team’s match against the dynasty-era New York Islanders (2,448 miles) ranked fourth. The Islanders series was a short and simple sweep by the Mike Bossy/Bryan Trottier/Billy Smith dynasty group while the Rangers beat the Canucks in that famous seven-game series. The Los Angeles Kings’ 1993 series against the Montreal Canadiens ranked third, going 2,469 miles.
Only the 1905 Ottawa Silver Seven vs. Dawson City Nuggets series featured more travel between venues than the upcoming series between the Bruins and Canucks will require. The two venues were 2,701 miles apart and the travel arrangements weren’t anywhere near as cushy, as Hughes describes in his great post.Back then, it was a challenge trophy, meaning that the holder had to fend off fights from all comers.
The Nuggets of Dawson City wanted in, so with some funding, they made the journey south and across Canada to Ottawa. Of course, they did part of the trek by dog sled. What else would you expect? The full trip actually spanned over 4,000 miles, with the team riding bicycles, using those dog sleds, hopping on a ship and then finally hitting the rails for the final leg from Vancouver to Ottawa.
They left home in mid-December, and they got to Ottawa just in time for the first game of the best-of-three series on January 13. Asking for a reprieve after a month of traveling in the winter weather, the Ottawa club denied the request before mercilessly pummeling them into the ground, 9-2, in that Game 1.
In the second game, the most-lopsided score in Stanley Cup history, the Silver Seven destroyed the sad Nuggets from little Dawson City by a final score of 23-2. Afterwards, the Silver Seven got drunk and famously kicked the Cup into the Rideau Canal. Surely the Nuggets would have treated that prize, which they starved for a month to have just a chance at playing for, with a little love.There definitely will be some post-Cup revelry whether the Bruins or Canucks end up the winners, but something tells me they might treat the victory with more care than the Silver Seven did as well.