Best All Time Stanley Cup Championship Series

The Stanley Cup is awarded each year in the National Hockey League (NHL) to the hockey playoffs champion. Winners keep the cup until the following year when a new championship team wins it. Each winning team’s name is engraved on the cup and traditionally the winning team drinks champagne out of it after their victory.

The Stanley Cup is the oldest trophy awarded to professional athletes in North America. Sir Frederick Arthur Stanley bought the trophy for only $50 and donated it in 1892 for presentation to winning hockey team of the Dominion of Canada. The first team ever to win the Stanley Cup was the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association in 1893. The National Hockey League (NHL) took over the cup in 1910 but it wasn’t until 1926 that the trophy became exclusive to only NHL teams.

We've had 2 straight fantastic Stanley Cup Finals. They both were between the Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins. Detroit won 4 games to 2 in 2008; Pittsburgh won 4 games to 3 in the 2009 finals. Particularly the 2009 final was tremendous; this time with Pittsburgh winning 2-1 in game 7.

But, the top all-time Stanley Cup Finals Series was the 1942 Detroit Red Wings vs Toronto Maple Leafs. Detroit and Toronto are fantastic rivals – located in close geographical proximity. For the first and only time in Stanley Cup history, the Maple Leafs rebounded from a 0-3 deficit to capture hockey’s biggest prize. Toronto stayed alive with a 4-3 victory in Game 4, then stole the momentum with a 9-3 win in Game 5, blanked the Red Wings 3-0 in Game 6 and then earned a 3-1 win in Game 7, before a crowd of more than 16,000 at Maple Leaf Gardens to cap the comeback. Pete Langelle provided the game-winner midway through the third period.

Another Stanley Cup Championship Series that made its mark in the history of NHL was between the Edmonton Oilers and the Philadelphia Flyers in 1987. In that series, the Oilers defeated the Flyers in seven games. In the final game, there were no overtime heroics but this was hockey the way it was meant to be played and was part of a string of four Stanley Cups in five seasons for the Oilers. Wayne Gretzky and Jari Kurri combined for seven goals.

From Best All Time Stanley Cup Championship Series to History of Hockey | Best All Time Sports Blog | History of Professional Football | MLB History | History of NBA | NCAA Football History | NCAA Basketball History | NCAA Baseball History | History of College Sports | Olympic Sports History | History of All Sports | Best Moments in Sports History | Worst All Time Sports Moment | Current Best All Time Sports News | NFL Football Apparel and Merchandise | MLB Baseball Apparel and Merchandise | NBA Basketball Apparel and Merchandise | NHL Hockey Apparel and Merchandise | College Fan Apparel and Merchandise | Other Sports Fan Apparel and Merchandise | Fathead | Sports Tickets |