It’s the second of these adages that makes me feel like a New Yorker of six years ago. We all remember the scenario. It was the 2004 American League Championship Series with the Yanks duking it out with the Red Sox for the A.L. pennant.

The Evil Empire went up in the series by a whopping three-games-to-none margin. For the Bosox, all was lost ... again. Not.

The Home Towne Team mounted the most incredible comeback in Major League Baseball history, storming back to win the next four games, en route to its first World Series title in 86 years.

Not only was it fun to revel in the uncharted territory of being on top of the baseball world, but it was equally enjoyable to poke fun at the Yankees’ monumental choke.

But remember, Dave, what goes around, comes around. I shudder just writing those words, yet they must be written, for New Englanders fell prey to them last week.

The Boston Bruins, themselves on an over-extended championship drought (38 years), surprised the hockey world by bumping off a tough Buffalo Sabres team, advancing to the second round of the NHL playoffs. The team that had struggled just to make the playoffs roared to a three-games-to-none lead in the second round, against the gritty Philadelphia Flyers.

A la the 2004 N.Y. Yankees, the 2010 Boston Bruins snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and blew the three-game lead. To make matters worse, they led 3-0 in Game 7, only to helplessly watch the visiting Flyers score four unanswered goals to win the game and the series.

I must admit, like thousands of other New Englanders that night, I sat in front of the tube in disbelief when the final buzzer buzzed. But I was able to shrug it off in a very short amount of time — which is surprising for me. It took me weeks to get over the Bucky Dent game, the ’86 World Series, and the 2003 Red Sox collapse in Game 7 at Yankee Stadium. But not this one.

I think only because earlier in the week, I witnessed live the unveiling of Bobby Orr’s “The Goal” statue, as was stated in last week’s column. So many of my childhood heroes from that 1970 Bruins’ team were there. And earlier in the week, NESN aired a special on that team.

Even before the great collapse of 2010, I knew there would never again be a team like the ’70 Bruins. It was a team in every sense of the word, and nothing will ever come close to that again. 

The ’70 and ’72 Bruins, like their predecessors, will always be Bruins. This Bruins’ team may wear the spoked B on their chests, but that’s as close to being a Bruin as they’ll ever be.  Why? It’s every man for himself now. Why? I’m not quite sure, but things happen for a reason.