Parade Recap: Seeing the Stanley Cup, 2011

Ah, the Stanley Cup parade for the 2011 Stanley Cup Champion Boston Bruins. It was hot and tiring and sweaty and oh-so-crowded, and it was wonderful. I never thought that seeing the Cup in person would be so special, but just a glimpse had me wide-eyed. I just saw the Stanley Cup. Wow.

And of course, I took a lot of pictures.

First, for Kate, this glimpse of the foam claw and hat combo:


The crowd in Government Center, over an hour to parade time.


All these people, still an hour to go.


It seemed like nine out of ten people wore Bruins gear, which was awesome. Red Sox fans probably feel this way every day.


This is how far we were from the street where the parade would go by.


A plane went by pulling one of those message-things.


Can't read it? Here's the close-up.


i will admit, I don't actually believe that Chara shot Osama. But he is capable of a lot!


Closer to parade time, bigger crowd.


Near us, there was a guy with a homemade Cup. You'll see this one again.


Waiting...


Waiting...


And here we go! Tim Thomas and Zdeno Chara on the first duck boat.


Tim to the captain: "You really are ten feet tall, aren't you?"


They had the Cup on their boat, but weren't holding it up as they passed us. I glanced left after they went by, though, and there it was.


Now, the man with the homemade Cup passed it over, and it went to Nathan Horton:


Who obligingly held it up:


He was pretty happy.


As was Milan Lucic:


The Bruins bear was more low-key, though perhaps it was the incipient heatstroke.


He did raise a paw.


Brad Marchand, self-proclaimed rat, Globe-designated Little Ball of Hate, was too cool for school.


And here comes my favorite, Patrice Bergeron. Ahh.



I don't know who this was, or why he was holding up signs for great past Bruins, but Terry O'Reilly was my favorite player as a kid, so I was glad to catch this:


So that was the parade itself. It took almost half an hour to go by. You can see highlights of the parade here.

There were outfit choices both great and ... interesting.

I like the Boston shirt this guy had:


Her boots, on the other hand? Would not have been my choice to pair with short-shorts.


This guy had rockin' Bruins-color sneakers.


I guess the woman at the left side of the photo thought that her shirt was close enough to Bruins colors to count as team spirit, though I think I disagree.


And you can see this guy was just behind her, in what appeared to be a fleece Bruins bathrobe. I just about had heatstroke looking at him.


Bruins pajama pants? Oh, dear, not out in public.


Speechless.


Also speechless.


Jersey foul! No one named Blak wore number 13 (I checked).


Oh, heinous jersey foul! No one but Orr gets his name on this jersey!


Jeez. Heresy, anyone?

(In the unlikely event that all this was Not Enough for you, the full set is on Flickr, here. Don't say you didn't ask for it.)