So as you can tell from my past posts – I’m a fan of the NHL team the Boston Bruins, even going so far to get season tickets with a friend. One of the perks of being season ticket holders is getting tickets to all the playoff games. When it is announced that the team makes the playoffs, they send us what looks like a big poster with the tickets to all four rounds:

So when we went to the first two home games of the first round and lost to the Habs, I was a bit miffed. I told my friend that I wouldn’t be coming over to watch the two away games as I was disgusted with the Bruins lack of good play. But I changed my mind and went to watch the games anyway, and the Bruins also changed. They won two games in Montreal, and then continued to give us a great series, winning it in game 7 of the Garden – with a score by Horton that I shall not forget for a long time.

Then the sweep of Phily – I thought beating the Habs (the Bruins equal to the Red Sox vs Yankees) was great, but sweeping the Flyers and seeing them win the semifinals at home was amazing. Especially after being up 3 – 0 to them in last years semis, and then losing four straight (and game 7 at home) to them last year.  But it would only get better.

I thought the Eastern Conference Finals would be hard no matter who we played, and it was another seven game grind with another nail-biting game seven. Watching the players gather around the Wales Trophy, I had hope that the Stanley Cup Finals would go our way – it seemed nothing could stop them now. Even though the Bruins were playing the Presidents’ Trophy winners, the fast flying and high scoring Canucks, the Bruins lost the first two games in Vancouver by one goal – and the Bs played hard. I knew they came back from two down in the first round, and unlike the first one – the Bruins were coming back to the Garden for the next two games.

The Garden was just amazing for games 3 and 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals. The crowd was as loud as I’ve ever heard it and so into it. There was an energy in the building that wasn’t there during some of the regular season games – this was playoff hockey at its finest. And when we won on a 12 to 1 total score in both games, after losing by 4 to 2 in the first two games, my confidence in the Bs winning it all increased. Just sitting in my seat in the balcony, I still couldn’t believe we were in the Stanley Cup Finals when I looked at the large banner hanging from the rafters:

After winning game 4, I had hope the Bruins would continue with this level of play and win game 5 in Vancouver and then win the cup in Boston on game 6. My hopes were high, what can I say. So when they lost by one goal another tightly contested match in Vancouver, I knew we would win game 6, but I was wondering what team would show up for game 7.

My friend and I went out to a local sports bar / restaurant to watch game 7. As more and more Bruins fans showed up, the noise level went up. When the game started, it felt like another game 1,2 or 5: the Bruins were playing hard, but so were the ‘Nucks. And it felt like another tight game with a low score. Then the Bruins scored first, I had some hope. Then we scored again, and my hope went up a little more – but I knew we had blown such a lead before. . .Even with the third goal I was nervous the high scoring Canucks would come back and do what we did in game 6: score 4 goals in 4 minutes and 14 seconds.

But they didn’t. And the empty netter by Marchand sealed the deal. The Bruins had won the Stanley Cup. What a fantastic season. Thanks to the Boston Bruins for all the memories, they will be treasured for a long time to come.

Cerebus Archive #13 was released in late April 2011 and I ordered a copy from ComiXpress. In fact, I ordered three copies – as there are three different covers: all the same but the little box where the date is located. One box says FDC for “First Day Cover”, one says APR for the month of release and one says POD for “Print On Demand”.

But I digress.

Cerebus Archive #13 is all about a couple days in December 1976. Dave talks about the first convention he went to: held at the high school that three years earlier he had dropped out from. In attendance was not only Dave, but Gene Day and T. Casey Brennan, both of whom sat on a panel with Dave at that convention.  At this convention Dave says he saw Deni Loubert for the first time, and he tells us how he thinks that convention set the wheels in motion for their first meeting in the downstairs area of the Kitchener comicbook store: Now & Then Books. The issue consists of Dave’s artistic depiction of these events along with picture comics – using pictures of the actual buildings.

So Dave is getting to the time in his life that he wrote about in “Why An Aardvark part 1“: How he met Deni and how they got together to create the sci-fi fanzine that would later become Cerebus the comic. This issue is a page turner, and he goes into more detail about the events of the meeting then he did in the Why An Aardvark essay series. I enjoyed seeing the pictures of the locales of these events, and Dave’s artistic interpretation of the first meeting between Deni and him. Worth the $4 admission price.