Bruins come out to plaaaay!

In 1979 an American classic infiltrated pop culture in the form of the film The Warriors. I can’t remember the year I first watched it but it would have been around the time my eldest brother was in his mid to late teens, so probably when I was 12 or so.

Set in New York, it begins with a scene in which all the gangs have come together to listen to Cyrus – the leader of the Riffs. Cyrus has called the meet to try and get the gangs to unite, in an attempt to wreak havoc on New York City. As he addresses the masses, a gun is passed around and someone in the crowd shoots Cyrus dead. In the madness that follows, the gang that actually shot him down, proclaim that it was “The Warriors” who killed him – and so their fight for survival begins.

As they look to get back home across the boroughs to Coney Island, every gang they run in to is out for their blood.

But The Warriors are not the Yankees. They are not the franchise that everybody wants to beat. The Warriors are the underdog through all of this. Often outnumbered, and faced with opponents more tooled up than them, this team of fighters battle through adversity to make it home. The Warriors are the 2011 Boston Bruins.

At no point during their run to Stanley Cup glory were the Bruins expected to make it. Despite amassing more points than the Canadiens, the Boston outift entered their first best of seven as the underdogs. The Canadiens were the Bruins’ Baseball Furies, the gang The Warriors encounter in Riverside Park. Armed as you may expect with baseball bats, these face painted menaces run The Warriors hard.

Gang member Ajax has enough of running from the Furies and turns around to stand up and fight. And just as you thought the Bruins were going to sucumb to the Candiens, up stepped Nathan Horton in overtime to see them narrowly escape defeat and win the seven game series 4-3. Things couldn’t have been any closer for the Bruins, and the feeling Boston fans would have had in the pit of their stomachs is the feeling you have when watching the athletic Baseball Furies chase The Warriors though the park.

The Flyers were the Bruins’ Turnbull AC’s, the first group The Warriors encounter as they pass through the Bronx. Riding around in old school buses and armed with chains, we never really get to see what the Turnbull AC’s can do as The Warriors run for the subway and sweep past them. They look like a force to be reckoned with, and you get the feeling that if they caught up with The Warriors they could do some damage, but they just aren’t up to it and can’t live with the pace and guile of our heroes.

Next up the Bruins faced their Lizzies. The Tampa Bay Lightning tried to play down their chances throughout the playoffs with coach Guy Broucher playing the underdog card before sweeping the Capitals 4-0. The media weren’t buying it, but they also found it hard to split these two before the series began and both had identical regular season records. Tampa however, with a better special teams record were hoping to lull the Bruins in to a false sense of security.

We see The Warriors meet our friendly Lizzies, who take them back to their place, shoot some pool and share a few beers. But things turn nasty and they go toe to toe with them and get drawn in to a fight for their lives. It’s an extremely close run thing, but The Warriors manage to avoid the gun shots and knife swipes to contiue their journey. This hard fought seven game series for the Bruins was just as scary if not scarier for Boston fans as the Montreal clash. Tampa had shown in the first six games that they could score heavily on the Bruins, and Boston had not kept them out in any game in the series.

But when they needed to, Boston got it done. It was Horton again with the crucial game winning goal, backed up by a heroic display by Tim Thomas in the net. Their opponents came hard at them, but they just had enough to see it through when everything was on the line. Now Boston and The Warriors were nearly there.

But like all good endings, their toughest challenge was their last. For the Warriors it was both the gang that shot Cyrus (the Rogues) and the baddest gang in all the land, the Grammercy Riffs. For the Bruins, it was the Presidents’ Trophy winners the Vancouver Canucks.

Cut to Coney Island at dawn, the wind is sweeping across the shore, and as they roll in to town the Rogues are waiting and calling on The Warriors to come out to play.

As they stroll along the beach, both the Rogues and the Riffs march towards them. The Riffs have brought an army of fighters to the party. After a very bad 24 hours, the now Warchief of The Warriors addresses the group that have come to meet them. “When we see the ocean, we figure we’re home, we’re safe.” Knowing that as they stand there exhausted, they could soon be in a fight they won’t win.

It was 3-3 in the series. The Canucks had been up two and the Bruins pulled back level, the Canucks had gone up again, but the Bruins had the tenacity and enough fight to get level again. They stood there like The Warriors with everything on the line after a long arduous journey.

Now the film might be over 30 years old, but i’m not going to spoil everything for those of you that haven’t seen it. But if this analogy is to work, they’ll be a twist to match the unexpected game seven whitewash on Vancouver home ice.

Radio DJ – Good news boppers, the big alert has been called off. It turns out that the early reports were wrong, all wrong. Now for that group out there that had such a hard time getting home, sorry about that…..