Stanley Cup Goes South. Again.

The Florida Panthers should have won the NHL Stanley Cup a week ago when they led the Edmonton Oilers 3-0. But the Oilers won the next three games to tie the Final and go to a Game 7. The Panthers won the Cup Monday, avoiding the embarrassment of being only the second team to lose it after taking a 3-0 lead. The Detroit Red Wings were that team in 1942, losing to the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Oilers were the latest Canadian-based NHL team since 1993 to lose the Cup. But Connor McDavid, the league's best current player not to win Lord Stanley, got a nice consolation prize in being awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy for playoff MVP. A prize McDavid declined to accept in front of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and a celebrating Florida crowd. Can you blame him?

In this decade, the Stanley Cup has resided in the NHL's warm weather outposts of Tampa Bay and Las Vegas. With the Panthers claiming the Cup for the first time in franchise history (they date back to the 1990's), one of the world's oldest championship trophies is again a Florida resident. Canada is so jealous. 

NBA Three Pointer: Celtics, Wolves and the TV Deal.

From the three-point line:

1. The Boston Celtics won their 18th NBA title Monday before the home folks at TD Garden, dispatching the Dallas Mavericks in five games. The Celtics were the best team all season, and there was little dispute over their worthiness to be a champion. Dallas? The way the Western Conference playoffs went, with new teams playing that could never have competed with Boston, let's thank the Mavs for coming out like they did.

2. The Minnesota Timberwolves, who had not been a serious playoff contender for two decades, finally became one this season. Led by Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards, the Wolves came within one game of the NBA Finals before losing to Dallas. Any chance of future success with a team like this (given their history) depends on two factors: (A) Staying together and staying healthy, which is where they have had problems in the past, and (B) Clearing up their ownership squabbles, starting with an arbitration dispute between current owner Glen Taylor and the two men he sold a chunk of the Wolves to: former baseball star and current entrepreneur Alex Rodriguez and businessman Marc Lore. We should know by Fall, if ever.

3. The NBA is almost ready to announce a new television deal with ESPN, NBC and Amazon Prime Video, once all the details are worked out.  What's missing is TNT, which might lose the games starting in 2025 after a few decades. But what basketball fans are worried about is what's going to happen with "Inside the NBA", the wraparound show that includes Shaquille O'Neal, host Ernie Johnson and lightning rod Charles Barkley that's been considered a better reason to watch TNT than the games themselves.  Well, Barkley's just announced that he's hanging up his mic after next season. But few people believe him. So however it comes out, the NBA will have a lot more platforms to play their games on.