Vancouver Canucks fans are cheering and the Boston Bruins are crying foul over the decision of the National Hockey League to overturn the original results of the 2011 Stanley Cup finals and award the championship of the NHL to the Canucks. The Bruins believed that they had won the Stanley Cup playoffs and the championship of the NHL when they pounded the Canucks 4-0 in game 7 of the finals. The NHL now says that the awarding of the Cup to the Bruins was a mistake based on an error in the rules memo issued to the two teams and the media. In this memo, the NHL wrote:
The team that first wins four games in a best of seven series will be awarded the Stanley Cup and will be recognized as the champions of the National Hockey League.
But the day after the game, NHL Commissioner and lifelong Canucks fan Gary Bettman announced that, based on the results of game 7, it was actually the Canucks who had won the Cup. Bettman said that the original memo was in error. According to Mr. Bettman, the NHL had decided in February that the first team to lose four games would be the Stanley Cup champion. Bettman said:
Regrettably, there was an error in the memo drafted and sent to the respective teams. There were questions raised at the time the memo was drafted as to whether the legal language used was accomplishing the goal of the committee and we were advised that it was, but now it is clear that the memo did not properly communicate the intent of the committee. The email traffic surrounding the drafting of the memo in early February makes explicitly clear what the intent of the committee was.
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