King Kaufman's Sports Daily

Stop me if you've heard this: Sun Belt Ducks one win from winning the Stanley Cup for old man Selanne.

Read more: Sports, NHL, Ice Hockey, King Kaufman, NHL playoffs, Sports Daily

June 5, 2007 | The Stanley Cup story line's getting a little samey lately, isn't it?

With the Anaheim Ducks' tense 3-2 road win over the Ottawa Senators Monday night giving them a 3-1 series lead, the formerly mighty waterfowl are 60 minutes away from winning their first championship. They're one win from beating a Canadian foe and bringing the Cup to their Sun Belt home.

All they have to do is avoid becoming the first team in 65 years to blow a 3-1 Finals lead and 36-year-old Teemu Selanne's name will be etched on the trophy at long last, after 14 years, a lockout, more than 1,000 regular-season games and at least 86 playoff tilts.

Any of this sounding familiar?

Those of us in the key-banging racket need a new plot. We used up all the sunshine and hockey-ignorance jokes when Tampa Bay beat Calgary in 2004 and Carolina beat Edmonton last year. So, great, Anaheim's going to win the Cup and we'll all feed our columns from last year into Jokerator 2.4 -- have you updated? -- and it'll change NASCAR to Disneyland and barbecue to Chardonnay.

Gosh, it's almost like anybody could do this job.

We were in this spot a year ago, the Hurricanes winning Game 4 in Edmonton to take a 3-1 lead. But since the NHL has turned into "Groundhog Day on Ice," there's hope that good times are ahead. The Oilers won an overtime stunner in Game 5 last year, then won Game 6 at home before the Hurricanes finally put them away in Game 7.

That, we'll take more of.

But is it just me who's getting tired of that story line about the veteran star striving for his first championship at the end of a long career? You know, with the teammates trying to win it for him?

Selanne is this year's model. Ray Bourque is really the poster boy. The Boston Bruins traded him to Colorado in 2000, at his request, for the express purpose of his getting his name on the Stanley Cup, which happened the next season, Bourque's 22nd and last. Until that point, he'd been the player who had the longest NHL career without winning a title.

One of the guys traded for him, Dave Andreychuk, took his turn in the role four years later with the Lightning, leading his team to the Cup as captain in his 22nd season, tying Bourque's record.

Next page: Each player's fair share of championships is one every 30 years. Fans' too