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Ice Hockey

Avalanche Beat Lightning to Win Their First Stanley Cup in Two Decades

It’s been over two decades since the Colorado Avalanche lifted the Stanley Cup trophy, but they finally did it again on Sunday night. After several amazing games in the finals against the Tampa Bay Lightning, they finally sealed the deal in Game 6 and took the trophy home. Tampa Bay was off to a good start in the first period after Steven Stamkos opened the scoring, but their celebration was short-lived. Nathan MacKinnon evened out the score before Artturi Lehkonen sealed the deal by netting the winning goal, leading Colorado to a 2-1 win. It was also a big night for Cale Makar, who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the playoffs, after netting 29 points over 20 games. Gabriel Landeskog, who’s been the fourth captain of Avalanche since 2012, described this win as a dream come true and acknowledged how hard it was to finally lift the Stanley Cup trophy. "That's 20-plus years of just dreaming and wanting and working for it and just finally coming to fruition after a lot of crazy years and a lot of hard work… The expectations we put on ourselves to be great, to work on ourselves. We had eight or nine come-from-behind wins,” said Landeskog. This marks Colorado’s third Stanley Cup win in the NHL history, and it’s their first title since 2001.