Stanley Cup Final Prompts Reminders Of 2004 ALCS

2004 is the gift that keeps on giving. It's always fantastic to see the New York media forced to dredge up and repeat Kevin Millar's comeback mantra from the 2004 American League Championship Series! This time, it's in the context of the New York Rangers being down 0-3 to the Los Angeles Kings in the Stanley Cup finals.

Note that New York Post columnist Mike Vaccaro chose not to use three germane hockey references - the 1941-42 Toronto Maple Leafs, 1974-75 New York Islanders, and the 2013-14 Los Angeles Kings (!) all came back from 0-3 to win a seven-game series. (In the Leafs' case, it was for the Cup.)

No, Vaccaro ignored those examples - one of which happened only six weeks ago! - and went right to the 2004 Boston Red Sox, reminding New Yorkers of Boston's unprecedented comeback and the Yankees' corresponding never-before-seen choke job!

Vaccaro, Post:

Rangers must channel '04 Sox

This is going to be a hard one to wrap your arms around, because we aren't often in the business of taking advice — no matter how sound — from people we detest. ...

You aren't going to like the sound of this one bit, but give it a few moments to marinate:

The Rangers need to act, from this point onward, like the Idiot Red Sox of 2004. ...

The Rangers are down three games to none now in these Stanley Cup finals, thanks to absorbing a 3-0 pounding from the Kings in Game 3 that was every bit as hideous as the 19-8 shellacking the Yankees laid on the Sox in Game 3 of the '04 ALCS. ...

For the Sox, it was a chatty first baseman, Kevin Millar, who gave voice to the what-the-hell mind-set that allowed them to stare at that 0-3 hole and not curl up into a ball. The afternoon of Game 4, with the world awaiting a Yankees victory lap, Millar had a message for anyone who would listen: Boston writers, New York writers, anyone with a minute to spare.

This was the way he said it to us scribes from Gotham:

"Don't let us win tonight. This is a big game. They've got to win because if we win we've got Pedro coming back tomorrow, then Schilling will pitch Game 6 and then you can take that fraud stuff" — the Sox were getting filleted as heartless Tin Men who'd teased their fans yet again — "and put it to bed."

He paused for emphasis. And then smiled.

"Don't let the Sox win this game!"

And look: It isn't just that the Sox DID win that game, and the one after that, and the two after that. It was the way they were transformed once they won it. They believed Millar. Suddenly it wasn't a ridiculous mountain, a four-game chore; it was a day-to-day mission, and on any given day you can talk yourself into anything, will yourself anywhere. ...