Sport and Cinema.com

Two traditional hockey towns, Boston and Vancouver, face each other beginning Wednesday in the 2011 Stanley Cup both with high hopes of bringing the NHL crown back home.

The road to Super Bowl XLV in Dallas gets more treacherous as the league enters the playoffs where it is lose and you’re done time. No rest for the weary (except for those that earned a bye – Steelers, Patriots, Bears and Falcons, but as recent history has proven the higher seeds aren’t locks for a Super Bowl berth.)

Beginning this weekend two longtime franchises battle for hockey’s greatest prize, as Chicago and Philadelphia square off in the Stanley Cup Final.

Blackhawks vs. Flyers – Two great sports towns, two units with great home-ice advantages, but two teams that can truly play tough in any rink.

A day after Boston took game one over Orlando in the Eastern Conference Finals on the road, Phoenix comes to Los Angeles to begin play at the Staples Center for the right to advance to the NBA Finals.

The strain on Kobe to carry a team that was supposed to lean more on Ron Artest and Lamar Odom has been evident down the stretch. The health concerns of Andrew Bynum will likely increase the burden on Bryant. For the Thunder to have a shot, they will need to have Russell Westbrook step up as it is likely that Kevin Durant will be slowed from the attention showered on him by the Lakers D.

This year’s NFL Playoffs have certainly re-affirmed that a team’s performance, now more than ever, is closely tied to the results produced by their quarterback.

The pressure in the NFL’s second season to reach the Super Bowl has knocked off the likes of San Diego’s Phillip Rivers, the Cardinals’ Kurt Warner and the Bengals’ Carson Palmer.

The Lakers earned their 15th title on Sunday night in Florida as Kobe Bryant scored 30 points and Pau Gasol added 14 and 15 rebounds in a 99-86 Game 5 win over the Orlando Magic.

For Gasol it is his first NBA ring, for Bryant, the series MVP, it was his fourth and first in seven years and first without Shaq.

The ultimate level of the sport’s compelling combination of speed, grace, physical mayhem, stick skills and intensity were on full display last night as that band of youngsters, the Penguins, with superstar kids Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin and a rookie coach defeated the dominant dynasty of the era, the Red Wings (NHL champs four times in a dozen years) in Detroit 2-1 taking the decisive Game 7 and the 2009 Stanley Cup.

This is the Los Angeles Lakers versus the Orlando Magic, two worthy groups of talented players to determine the best TEAM in professional basketball. The hype of “Kobe vs. LeBron” doesn’t work just like “Kobe vs Dwight” doesn’t work. While they are their team’s respective leaders, Bryant and Howard don’t face each other in direct mano-a-mano competition for 48 minutes like a hardwood version of Ali vs. Frazier. They play different positions in a team game. Having said that it may still come down to how the respective opposing defenses handle these two stars. But there are a lot more contributing factors involved.

The 2009 Stanley Cup which begins later today marks the first title rematch since the Edmonton Oilers and the New York Islanders met in 1983 and 1984.

The Pittsburgh Penguins are headed back to the NHL championships, clinching a return trip with a 4-1 rout of the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday night that finished off a sweep in the Eastern Conference finals.