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Thursday Legion — Oroville vs Red Bluff at Corning, 5 p.m., DH U.S. Open — 1st Round, 7 a.m., ESPN, Noon, NBC, 2 p.m. ESPN MLB—Brewers at Cubs, 11:10 a.m., WGN Lacrosse — Chesapeake at Long Island, 4:30 p.m., ESPN2 Sports 1B BERKELEY (AP) — This sea- son has already included the biggest save in California baseball history. Now the Golden Bears are hoping to cap it with one of their biggest wins. A season that started with the Cal baseball program on the chop- ping block because of budget problems is ending at the College World Series in what can only be described as a storybook ending. ‘‘It’s been a roller coaster ride,’’ catcher Chadd Krist said. ‘‘We were cut, we weren’t cut, we weren’t playing very well and lost some of our focus and energy. We were kind of a bubble team for the playoffs but we made it. We deserved to make it and now we’re going to the College World Series. It’s been a unique ride but it’s been special.’’ It’s been an emotional year for the Golden Bears (37-21), who found out in September just before the start of fall practice that the program would be eliminated after the school year as part of a cost- cutting move by cash-strapped Cal. Then hopes for reinstatement spurred by private fundraising were dashed just over a week before the season when the school announced that the men’s rugby, women’s lacrosse and women’s gymnastics programs would be saved, but baseball and men’s gymnastics would be eliminated after the year. But the program’s supporters never stopped working, raising more than $9 million to persuade Chancellor Robert Birgeneau to announce in April that the program would avoid the chopping block. The players did the rest. They made it to the NCAA tournament, staged a dramatic rally to beat Bay- lor to win a regional, then swept Dallas Baptist in the super region- al to earn the program’s first trip to Boston Bruins win Stanley Cup VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — While the Boston Bruins beelined across the ice to mob him at the buzzer, Tim Thomas tapped both goalposts, sank to his knees and rubbed the ice in front of his empty goal. Thomas drew a virtual line in his crease throughout these crazy, contentious Stanley Cup finals, and Boston’s brilliant goalie just wouldn’t allow the Vancou- ver Canucks to cross it whenever it really mattered. After 39 years without a championship, the Bruins ripped the Cup — and sev- eral thousand hearts — out of a Canadian city that had waited four decades itself for one sip. Thomas was just too good, and the Bruins are the NHL’s best. The Cup is headed back to the Hub of Hockey. Thomas made 37 saves in the second shutout of his landmark finals perfor- mance, Patrice Bergeron and rookie Brad Marchand scored two goals apiece, and the Bruins beat the Canucks 4-0 Wednesday night to win their first championship since 1972. ‘‘I think I went even fur- ther than I thought,’’ Thomas said. ‘‘I never envi- sioned three Game 7s in one playoff season and still being able to come out on top.’’ The Bruins leaped over the boards and headed straight for Thomas at the final buzzer, mobbing the goalie who carried them through long stretches of this postseason. The Bruins are the first team in NHL history to win a Game 7 three times in the same postseason, with Thomas posting shutouts in the deci- sive game of the Eastern Conference finals and the Stanley Cup finals. Captain Zdeno Chara nearly slipped when he skated away from Commis- sioner Gary Bettman with the Stanley Cup. And the oversized trophy eventually got a lift from Nathan Hor- ton, the injured Boston for- ward whose Game 3 con- cussion on a late hit irrevo- cably swung the series’ momentum to Boston. Before Game 7, Horton worked to give the Bruins a home-ice advantage, pour- ing a bottle of Boston water onto the ice in front of the Bruins’ bench 90 minutes before warmups. ‘‘I was just trying to get some Garden ice here and make it our ice,’’ Horton said. But it was mostly Thomas, who limited the Canucks to eight goals in seven spectacular games in the finals, blanking Vancou- ver in two of the last four. Boston dropped the first two games in Vancouver but became just the third team since 1966 to over- come that deficit. ‘‘We got the first goal, MCT photo Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas celebrates with the Stanley Cup,Wednesday. and we knew that would be important coming here,’’ said 43-year-old Mark Rec- chi, who plans to retire after winning the Stanley Cup with his third franchise. ‘‘If they got any chances, Timmy was there, and it was just scary how good he was.’’ Bergeron quieted the crowd with the first goal, scoring the eventual game- winner in the first period. He added a short-handed score in the second to keep the Cup away from the Canucks, who have never won it in nearly 41 years of existence. Star goalie Roberto Luongo again failed to match Thomas’ brilliance, giving up 18 goals in the last five games of the finals. Thomas thoroughly out- played and outclassed his Vancouver counterpart while limiting the Canucks to eight goals in seven games. Luongo, Vancou- ver’s enigmatic goalie, capped a brutally inconsis- tent series by allowing Bergeron’s crushing short- handed goal to slip under- neath him late in the second period. ‘‘Their goaltender was real tough to beat,’’ Vancou- ver coach Alain Vigneault said. ‘‘The way they played in front of him was real tough to beat. We had some Grade A chances, and we were unable to score.’’ Game 7 was another heartbreak for the Canucks, who still have never raised the Cup, and their stunned fans, who stayed by the thousands just to get a glimpse of the trophy. Mark Messier and the New York Rangers won Game 7 in Vancouver’s last finals appearance in 1994. This time, Thomas silenced the NHL’s highest-scoring team, erased nearly four decades of Bruins playoff blunders and crushed an entire Canadian city desper- ate to take the Stanley Cup across town to Stanley Park. ‘‘Anybody in our situa- tion right now would feel real disappointed, whether you’re the favorite or not,’’ Vigneault said. ‘‘We battled real hard. We gave it our best shot. This one game, they were the better team. It’s that simple.’’ Bergeron added a Stan- ley Cup ring to his gold medals from the Olympics and the world champi- onships with his biggest game of a quiet series. He scored his first goal of the finals late in the first period on a shot Luongo saw too late, and Marchand added his 10th goal of the postsea- son in the second before Bergeron’s short-handed goal. ‘‘What a feeling this is,’’ Recchi said. ‘‘What a great group of guys. No matter what happened tonight, this is one of the best groups of guys I’ve played with.’’ During a two-week Stanley Cup finals that ranks among the NHL’s weirdest in recent years, the only predictable aspect had been the home teams’ dom- inance. Vancouver eked out three one-goal victories at home, while the Bruins won three blowouts in Boston. ‘‘All the physical work we’d done throughout the whole series added up,’’ Thomas said. ‘‘Being the last series, we didn’t save anything, and we used that physicality again and that was the difference.’’ Game 7 capped a spec- tacular collapse by Luongo, who backstopped Canada to Olympic gold medals on this same ice sheet a year ago. Luongo was pulled from the Canucks’ last two games in Boston after giv- ing up 15 goals on the road, and he was fatally shaky in Game 7. Luongo praised his own positional game earlier in the series, but he didn’t recover in time to stop Marchand’s second-period goal. Five minutes later, he couldn’t close his legs on a slowly sliding puck on Bergeron’s goal — the sev- enth allowed by Luongo on the last 21 shots he faced dating back to Game 4. See CUP, page 2B Thursday June 16, 2011 Cal’s roller-coaster season ends in World Series ‘‘They’ve had a 50-pound weight on their backs all season with the cards they were dealt. This is definitely a movie script. I hope the people who were involved in making that decision have their heads between their legs now.’’ — Oakland Athletics outfielder Conor Jackson the College World Series since 1992. The Bears open play Sunday against top-seeded Virginia, look- ing for their third title overall and first since 1957. ‘‘They weren’t going to take no See CAL, page 2B US Open a tough test without being hard BETHESDA, Md. (AP) — Golf's second major champi- onship of the year seems to have a new name. It's the U.S. Wide Open. Only a small part of that is because of Tiger Woods. He's not at Congressional because of injuries to his left leg, and he has been missing from the top of leaderboards for more than a year. This is the first U.S. Open since 1999 that Woods is not No. 1 in the world. The top two players in the world ranking are Luke Don- ald and Lee Westwood, neither of whom has won a major. Parity has returned to golf so much so that 10 players have won the last 10 majors, and the last three major champions are still in their 20s. But there's another reason why the U.S. Open figures to be up for grabs when it gets under way Thursday: No one is complaining. Jack Nicklaus, a four-time U.S. Open champion, used to listen to players gripe about the narrow fairways, thick rough and rock-hard greens and rule them out of contention. Before long, it was a short field he had to beat. Congressional isn't getting much criticism this week. The last several years, the USGA has been trying make the U.S. Open live up to its reputation as the "toughest test in golf" without simply making the course as hard as it could. "If you're complaining about playing this course," Padraig Harrington said Wednesday, "you're complaining that you can't hit the shots," The Irishman, who has fallen out of the top 50 in the world, spent his final day of practice with Masters runner-up Adam Scott and World Golf Championship winner Nick Watney. They're part of a field loaded with players who have won something, but no one who has won everything. The USGA didn't have the course exactly as it wanted because of oppressive heat the week before that kept them from cutting the green as low as usual, fearful of them dying. Even so, there already were brown patches on some of them Wednesday, and Stewart Cink couldn't help but notice a sheen on the putting surfaces before the championship even begins. About the only complaint from Harrington — more sub- ject for architectural debate — was moving back the tee on No. 12 to make it play 471 yards. It took away the option of hitting a draw around the dogleg, and replaced it with anoth- er strong hole to start the back nine. It was suggested to Harrington that Congressional already had ample length at the end. "It's an ample start," he said. "And the middle is not that easy, either." Some things never change. There was another Nicklaus comment that caught the attention of Geoff Ogilvy, who won the U.S. Open five years ago at Winged Foot. "The U.S. Open is 72 holes of bad breaks with the occa- sional surprise," Nicklaus once said. "Which is kind of how it feels," Ogilvy added. "It really is 72 holes of trying to not get annoyed at bad breaks. They're the guys who do it best." Even so, Ogilvy has found the U.S. Open to be more about "fair" than "tough" in the five years that Mike Davis, the new executive director of the USGA, has been in charge of setting up the golf courses. He has kept the graduated rough — it gets deeper the far- ther a tee shot strays from the fairway — and shaved some of the sides of bunkers to allow balls to roll into the sand. On some holes, particularly the par-5 16th, the sides of the greens have been turned into collection areas that will send shots into the pine needles beneath the trees. That at least allows for options in chipping. "All I'd like them to do is come to a golf course and say, 'How do we make this golf course find the best player this week?' It's getting more that way," Ogilvy said. "It used to be, 'How do we make this the hardest course we possibly can?'" Phil Mickelson has thrived in just about every condition at the U.S. Open, getting into the record book with five run- ner-up finishes. About all that's left for him to do is win, and he's at least inspired this week by the way the course is set up. As for not having Woods around? "I've always felt as though Tiger has helped bring out some of my best golf over the years," Mickelson said. "And even though my record against him may not be the best, it's helped me achieve a higher level that I may not have ever achieved had he not been pushing me. So the challenge now is without him playing his best, or even competing this week, pushing myself to achieve a level of play that is in there with- out him forcing me to do so. "So in that sense it might be a little bit more difficult." Congressional should be difficult enough. Four of the last six times at the U.S. Open, the winning score has been par or worse. Then again, the course outside the nation's capital has proven to be susceptible to decent scores in its two previous U.S. Opens. Ken Venturi became See OPEN, page 2B U.S. Open World Series College BOS Boston 4 Vancouver 0 4-3