Yes, The Detroit Red Wings have won the Stanley Cup in 2008. A few interesting facts mentioned on the NBC TV broadcast on Monday and again last night.
First, this is the first Stanley Cup awarded to a team captain of European Descent, to Nickas Lidstrom. I haven't reasearched it, but I assume the rest have all been Canadian and Americans.
Second, to get your name inscribed on the Stanley cup, you need to have either played in a stanley cup championship game, or else have played in 40+ games during the regular season. Also, the team can petition for a player to have his name put on the cup, if he otherwise didn't meet the other requirements. They mentioned it in regards to Chris Chelios, who played in over 60 games during the regular season, but did not play in the Cup finals. He has now won his third stanley cup, his second with Detroit, the other with Montreal.
The Wings won the game, but the Penguins made a valiant effort at the end. They scored with 1:24 left to bring the score to 3-2. Detroit had scored their 3rd goal earlier, when their goalie Marc-Andre Fleury made a save, the puck fell behind him though. In an effort to freeze the puck, he fell backwards, but the puck squirted into the net, just over the line. 99 out of 100 times the goalie would freeze that puck. Then, with mere seconds left, young gun Sidney Crosby fired the puck, which goalie Chris Osgood deflected just to the left of the net, where Crosby's teammate Marian Hossa was, and he flipped it toward the goal mouth, thru the crease, but safely missed the net. Replay showed that had he been able to direct the rebound into the net, it would have been mere 10ths of a second too late.
This great game has helped bring fans back into the realm.
