A day after the Boston Bruins won their first Stanley Cup in nearly four decades, Mainers snapped up Bruins apparel, the governor and Portland’s mayor prepared to invite the team to Maine, and one Cape Elizabeth man savored an unforgettable moment in Vancouver.
Just hours after seeing their team beat the Vancouver Canucks, 4-0, in the seventh game of the Stanley Cup finals, fans raced to stores Thursday morning to buy most anything that bore a Bruins logo.
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The Olympia Sports store at the Maine Mall in South Portland had sold out of Bruins Stanley Cup champion caps by Thursday night, said the store’s manager, Seth Pollender. “The Bruins stuff has been flying out the door,” he said.
Spencer Lagerstrom, 19, of Saco, who just finished his freshman year at the University of Maine at Farmington, bought a cap and a T-shirt at Olympia. The Bruins won their last National Hockey League championship two decades before he was born.
Now, he said, “I’m in the generation that has seen every professional Boston team win a championship. And for the Bruins to do it now … it’s a pretty remarkable accomplishment.”
Amanda Rogers and Rachel Theberge, who play in a women’s hockey league in Portland, bought Bruins championship caps. Each cap cost $30.
“They last longer than T-shirts,” Rogers said. “Hats are forever.”
The women plan to get Bruins tattoos to celebrate the team’s first Stanley Cup since 1972. “I still get goose bumps,” Rogers said. “It was like a dream.”
Theberge was too hoarse to speak.
The women spent Wednesday night watching Game 7 at Rivalries, a sports bar on Cotton Street in Portland. A crowd estimated at more than 300 people cheered as the Bruins shut out the Canucks.
“It was shoulder-to-shoulder in here. It was almost like controlled chaos,” said Bryant Portwine, who manages Rivalries.
Portwine said all of the bar’s 32 wide-screen televisions except one was tuned to the Bruins game. “I think we had one television on the Red Sox game, but it really didn’t matter,” he said.
Gov. Paul LePage’s office was making plans Thursday to invite the Bruins to Maine at a future date.
“The governor is planning to reach out to the Bruins and asking them if they would like to come to Maine and share the Stanley Cup with the fans they have here,” said Adrienne Bennett, spokeswoman for LePage. “He is thrilled with the win and he has actually invited the Bruins to come to the Blaine House.”
Portland officials would love to see the Bruins in town.
“We’ll see what we can do about inviting the team to Portland,” said Mayor Nicholas Mavodones. “We’d love to have them bring the cup here.”
On Thursday night, Nate Frechette and Chuck Larsen refereed a summer league game between the Brunswick and Falmouth high school girls’ hockey teams at the Portland Ice Arena. Frechette, 24, is a lifelong Bruins fan. Larsen, who grew up in New Brunswick, is a loyal Canucks fan.
“I gave myself a beer shower after the game” Wednesday night, Frechette said.
“I wanted to die. I’ve been a Canucks fan for 17 years,” said Larsen, who left the Foreplay sports bar in Portland’s Old Port after the second period of the game so he could watch his team lose in the solitude of his home.
Frechette said he plans to take the Downeaster train to Boston on Saturday so he can see the Bruins’ victory parade. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he said.
Frechette — and any other Bruins fan — would gladly have traded places Wednesday night with David Weatherbie of Cape Elizabeth.
Weatherbie, a Bruins season ticket holder, flew to Seattle on business Tuesday before driving 2½ hours north to Vancouver, British Columbia, to see Wednesday’s championship game at Rogers Arena.
Weatherbie, 43, a former track and cross country coach at Cape Elizabeth High School and the president of the annual Beach to Beacon road race, said he was lucky enough to get onto the ice after the game ended.
Weatherbie said he met Bob Sweeney, a former Bruins player, on the ice. They know each other from coaching opposing youth hockey teams. They high-fived each other before being led into the Bruins locker room.
“I attached myself to his hip,” Weatherbie said.
Weatherbie said he stood at the rear of the locker room for more than an hour, watching the players celebrate their victory.
Then came the moment that a diehard Bruins fan could only imagine. He was offered a chance to hold the Stanley Cup. Weatherbie held the coveted trophy above his head as a bystander snapped his photograph.
“It was surreal, an incredible experience and one I will never forget,” he said Thursday evening while waiting to board the plane in Newark, N.J., that would take him back to Portland. “To be part of that celebration was something else. It’s a night I am never going to forget.”
Staff Writer Dennis Hoey can be contacted at 791-6365 or at:
dhoey@pressherald.com
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