Mark Spector

Mark Spector is a columnist for sportsnet.ca

There's nothing like winning the Stanley Cup, and nothing like losing it.

PHILADELPHIA — Of all the spots those creative, New York advertising minds have devised for the National Hockey League, we find the current running ad — a montage of players left speechless after having won the Stanley Cup — the most compelling.

From Ray Bourque, to Glen Wesley, to Brett Hull to Bill Ranford, they are at a loss for words. Proving what we learned long ago: The best quotes always come out of the losers' locker room.

Somehow the losing player can articulate what the winner can not. Both players’ words come straight from the heart, but the winner’s often bypass the brain, and make less sense. The loser slows everything down — pain takes him right to the point — and less words are always more powerful than more.

The same goes for coaches.

Even four years later, Peter Laviolette can vividly articulate the feeling in his gut after his Carolina Hurricanes had, in Game 6 as they had in Game 5, failed to close out the 2006 Cup.

"It was nauseating. I went back to the hotel room in Edmonton and I almost threw up," Laviolette said on Tuesday, his Flyers now chasing this series like the Oilers were in ‘06. "Game 5 wasn't much better. We were winning, they tied it up late. We went on the power-play in overtime and (Fernando Pisani) scored on a short-handed goal in our building, with the Cup being polished out back.

"To be close, to have an opportunity..."

And to blow it.

As elated as a man feels who wins a Stanley Cup, that is how empty one must be who has a prime chance yet cannot close the deal. Because it is these wins in June that define a career.

We think of Pronger as a winner, and Marian Hossa — who jumped teams only to lose both finals in ’08 and ’09 — as quite the opposite. In actual fact however, if Chicago wins one of the next two games Hossa will have the same batting average in Cup finals as Pronger — 1-for-3.

Chris Pronger was, of course, on that Edmonton blue-line in ’06. They gallantly fought back to a Game 7 after losing their starting goalie to injury in Game 1. This time around, Pronger's come-from-behind Flyers have woven quite a tale, only to find themselves down to their final life, trailing 3-2 with Game 6 set for Wednesday night.

We don’t know if there is any magic left in Philly, but this much is set in stone: When you get this close and lose, much of the impressive lead-up — the Boston comebacks, the Game 82 shootout wins — winds up on the mind's editing room floor.

"It was tough to start that next season, losing what was essentially a 2-1 hockey game (in Game 7). It was tough to get motivated to go back on the ice," Pronger said of that ’06 loss. "We're not here just to get to a Game 7. We want to win.

"At the end of the day, we're here to win a Stanley Cup. We need to get two wins to do it. But you have to get one before you get two."

Pronger has absolutely defined himself as the best in the business at steering the ship through four rounds, having done it for the third time in five years this spring — with three different teams, no less.

At 35 he is a first-ballot Hall of Famer still close enough to his prime to lead all NHL players in ice time these playoffs, averaging 29:01 per game. As such, while everyone around him grows that much tighter with the Stanley Cup in the building, he is the picture of calm.

At the podium Pronger jousts daily with his favorite Philly writer, Tim Panaccio, ripping him for his questions, his hair — whatever wins the battle, fair or unfair.

On the ice, some say he gets away with murder. Others say he knows the boundaries better than any other player. And frankly, aren’t they both saying the same thing?

He is all elbows and stick, winning most of his battles the same way he works Panaccio, fairly or unfairly. It hurts to play hockey against Chris Pronger, and as ready for success as Chicago's Jonathan Toews appeared to be through three rounds, this finals test against big No. 20 is one that was impossible to study for. Toews, with two assists through five games, is failing it, big-time.

It wasn’t a great day to be Pronger on Tuesday, however. Just as the Chicago Tribune came out with a poster page of Pronger’s upper body Photoshopped on to the midriff and legs of a figure skater — Headline: "Crissy Pronger, Looks Like Tarzan, Skates Like Jane" — the NHL released the latest in its "History Will Be Made" line.

It’s all about Dustin Byfuglien’s launching of Pronger into the boards in Game 5, a rare defeat for the big guy.

Though that kind of daily double could have ruined a lesser man, we're betting Pronger will be OK.

Methinks he has enough ego to weather the storm.