View from the Cheap Seats – Driveway dreams realized in Cup Final
How many times has this happened on backyard ponds and driveways across the continent? You’ve got the puck, streaking down the left-wing boards, it’s overtime with the Cup on the line, you snap a shot on net, the twine bulges and you streak down the ice celebrating with your teammates and thousands of screaming fans. For Pat Kane, that dream became a reality on Wednesday night, and you can bet there are quite a few young pavement allstars that will be replaying similar scenarios for some time. While I doubt any of those reenactments will include an interview with Pierre McGuire, Kane’s response in that interview just minutes after scoring that goal demonstrated the incredible passion that this game is played with. After a quick shoutout to his friends and family, it quickly set in on the 21 year old that he had fulfilled his childhood dream.
Contrast that reaction with that of Jeremy Roenick, who spent 18 years in the league, 8 with Chicago and 3 in Philadelphia, but never got to hoist the Cup. Watching two such drastically different perspectives on the trophy really struck a nerve with me. On one hand, you had Patrick Kane, a young star with an incredibly bright future, and the potential to be lifting this trophy for years to come, who has accomplished the feat he probably laid awake dreaming of at night as a kid. On the other hand, JR, a great ambassador of the game who was a heck of a player in his day, who spent nearly two decades chasing the Cup but was never given the opportunity to hoist it high.
Watching a noted NHL badass tear up on national TV in realization of the fact that his chance to hold the Cup had passed was sobering enough, but to consider the hundreds of players that have dedicated years of their lives to the sport without ever drinking from the heaviest champagne glass of all truly made me realize just how special this victory is to each Blackhawk and all the fans in the Windy City. No other sport’s trophy holds the same emotion, history and reverence that Lord Stanley’s Cup is treated with among hockey players. No young football star runs into his backyard endzone screaming that he won the Vince Lombardi Trophy. No driveway buzzerbeaters have won the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy. No disrespect to other sports, but TV ratings be damned, this is one thing hockey has that none of them have.
The Cup is the reason we all love this game. It’s the reason we already can’t wait for the puck to drop next fall, and it’s the reason we all spend hours poring over stats, analysis and trade rumors in hopes that it will be our team’s turn next. It’s the reason we got up a half hour early for 6:30 am practice so we could get on the ice and mess around. It’s the reason for suicide sprints, endless breakout drills and garage doors riddled with puck marks. For those of us behind a laptop, it’s probably guaranteed that none of us will be the ones celebrating at center ice, but for those kids, men and graybeards still lacing them up 82 games a season, the Cup is the reason they get up and go to work every morning.
I don’t know what it was exactly that made this Stanley Cup so meaningful to me, but apparently I’m not the only one. Game 6 was the most watched Stanley Cup Final in 36 years, or to put that in more understandable terms, when Gretzky won his first Cup with the Oilers. Hockey is coming back, folks, and it should be exciting to see how much of the current fan interest carries into next season. For now, though, Pat Kane is the happiest man on skates in the world and the envy of all the current and former early morning risers and sidestreet warriors, this one included.
That’s the View from the Cheap Seats – thanks for reading, and as always, you can follow me at twitter.com/editorinleaf.