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NEW JERSEY
VS.
CAROLINA
OTTAWA
VS.
TORONTO
WASHINGTON
VS.
PITTSBURGH
PHILADELPHIA
VS.
BUFFALO
COLORADO
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VANCOUVER
DETROIT
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LOS ANGELES
DALLAS
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EDMONTON
ST. LOUIS
VS.
SAN JOSE
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Thursday, April 26
Clinching Cup for Bourque will be a bonus
Terry Frei
Special to ESPN.com
We won't insult Ray Bourque by turning this into a George Gipp melodrama.
|  | | Ray Bourque left Boston in March last year to play for a Cup contender. |
One reason is that Knute Rockne's "Win One for the Gipper" speech before the 1928 Notre Dame-Army game was unadulterated bunk. Gipp never made such a request on his deathbed in 1920. He was no hero, but was an indifferent student and a professional gambler who bet on his own team and acted as the squad bookie. He was a hard drinker who might have brought on his own death with a three-day bender. And who knows what might have happened if the "Knute Rockne, All-American" screenwriters hadn't so romanticized Gipp? Ronald Reagan's role in the film might not have been so presidential.
But beyond that, if the Colorado Avalanche's playoff mission becomes too centered on No. 77's quest for the sport's Holy Silver Grail, it will be counterproductive. The drive for a possible NHL championship, and the intoxicating experience of sipping even water from Lord Stanley's farewell present to the dominion of Canada, is best mustered with a combination of selfishness and all-for-one, everybody's-name-gets-on-the-trophy selflessness.
In other words, you win it for the team and you win it for yourself and then you can afford the vicarious thrill of knowing how someone else, even a Ray Bourque, must feel after waiting for years. But if it's an effective supplemental incentive for the Avalanche, somewhere down the list as they open the playoffs against the Canucks, it can't hurt the Colorado cause.
Playoff beards. One-game-at-a-time, don't-offend-anyone quotes.
Win one for the 22-season veteran. It all fits together.
Around North America, around the league, and especially in the North End and New England, that view of "if (insert favorite team) can't win it, it might as well be Ray" still is staking out a significant niche. In fact, Colorado opponents again might even be paranoid about it, as when the Coyotes' Jeremy Roenick whined about "The Messiah" being immune to being penalized in the first round last season.
Yet somehow, it is a confirmation of Bourque's assimilation into the Colorado communal attitude that the "win-one-for-Ray" sentimentality isn't being brought up as much this year as the Avs enter the playoffs. We have to ask them about it.
"You want to win it for yourself, you want to win it for your teammates, and if you do that, it's a great story," Bourque himself said Sunday after Colorado finished the regular season with a victory at Minnesota. "We all realize and recognize it ain't gonna be easy."
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Some of the other guys on this team have won one, and I guess trying to win Ray one can be a story. But everyone has to be selfish, too. I love Ray. I want him to get one. But I want to get one, too. I want one just as bad. ” |
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— Avalanche forward Chris Drury |
Avalanche winger Chris Drury, who was 4 years old when Bourque broke in with the Bruins, and who witnessed Bourque's stretch run with the Bruins up close as a star at Boston University, smiled when the win-one-for-Ray sentiment was brought up.
"Sure, that's there," he said. "Some of the other guys on this team have won one, and I guess trying to win Ray one can be a story. But everyone has to be selfish, too. I love Ray. I want him to get one. But I want to get one, too. I want one just as bad."
After Patrick Roy passed Terry Sawchuk and became the record-holder for career regular-season wins, he virtually immediately said the next goal was to get his pal Ray Bourque's name on the Stanley Cup. Roy's name already is engraved in three different places, of course. On Sunday, Roy acknowledged that trying to win for Bourque "was part of the objective last year when he joined us. And it's still part of it.
"I think Ray has done a lot for this game, and he deserves that. He's been part of the Big Dance a couple of times in Boston, but it would be nice for him to touch the steel."
Last season, the Avs were the sentimental favorites; this season, they and the Devils are the logical choices. A couple of the biggest question marks following Colorado's Presidents' Trophy season involve Bourque: Can he stay healthy? And how will Colorado use the elite defensive threesome of Bourque, Rob Blake and Adam Foote?
The Avs finally had all three in the lineup for the same game Sunday at Minnesota -- and then Bourque headed to the dressing room after a couple of shifts with what was reported to be a tweaked back.
"I'm just going to have treatment the next couple of days, and it should be fine," Bourque said.
It wasn't fine, because Bourque didn't practice with the Avs this week and is considered doubtful for Thursday's Game 1.
This season, Blake is the new guy fitting in; Bourque is the holdover.
"It's different because of everything I had to deal with last year and just the change," said Bourque. "It was exciting, but this year is exciting, too. The expectations from day one this year have been higher and I think everyone is on a mission. From Day One, we wanted to be the best team in the league in the regular season. We accomplished that, and now we're on a mission to win 16 games in the playoffs."
And if they do, they will have won one for themselves. Not just Ray.
Terry Frei of The Denver Post is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. His feedback email address is ChipHilton23@hotmail.com.  Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
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