\u201cIt\u2019s magic,\u201d he said of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. \u201cYou\u2019re going back-to-back with games every night. It\u2019s amazing. It\u2019s almost as if, while there are all these games, there\u2019s one long continuous game.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach exciting moment of one comes to feel as if it\u2019s part of an exciting moment of the next and the next and the next \u2026 you end up reacting as if it\u2019s one game, all of these things that are happening in one game that\u2019s going on night after night.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though the Canadiens had a special place in his heart, he didn\u2019t expect to be pulling for any team in particular.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are certain teams that I have a certain affection for and in some cases a big affection, but I end up really kind of hoping for the team that deserves to win,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt becomes clear with each game in a series who is really earning it. There are very few teams that I really don\u2019t like, there are very few that I really, really like a lot. I can come to like, a lot, a team that\u2019s really earning it, even a team that I have no history with at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhoever will win the Stanley Cup will have earned it,\u201d Dryden said, the Florida Panthers ultimately bound for their second consecutive championship. \u201cThat\u2019s why you play the game. The players are going to determine it. I\u2019m not going to determine it with whatever I think or do with any fantasy league.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s in their hands and those hands are terrific and exciting and competitive. Whoever makes it to the end is going to have completely earned and deserved it.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was classic Ken Dryden, not a simple opinion casually shared. He watched his final Stanley Cup Playoffs as he played the game and had lived his full, remarkable 78 years — with insight and depth and a unique point of view, life qualities for which he\u2019ll always be remembered.<\/p>\n
Top photo: Ken Dryden early in his Canadiens career, watching a puck fly to the corner during a Montreal Forum game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s magic,\u201d he said of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. \u201cYou\u2019re going back-to-back with games every night. It\u2019s amazing.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-124437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}