If you don’t mind, I’m going to use this post to try and gather my thoughts of the past five days. I think most of all what the Cup meant to me is the picture above. Whatever else may come in our lives, the three of us will have that moment when we realized Patrick Kane scored, and the whole night after it. And that’s a pretty nice thing to have. I’ll never forget it, and neither will you.
Past that, I think the Cup has redefined every Hawks and hockey memory I have. Before, they were all loose moments. My first game, my first time in the standing room at the Old Stadium, the night they scored four goals in a 1:56, seeing Gretzky score a hat trick in Josh Mora’s seats, Steve Yzerman absolutely Roethlisberger-ing Karl Dykhuis, Steve Thomas scoring four goals, my first trip to the UC, Roenick’s last game, the doldrums, and the rebirth, starting the Indian and nursing it to its current state, and all the others, are no longer a jumble. They all feel as if they were building up to Wednesday and the days that followed. They make sense now. Almost.
Past that? Well, my hair won’t grow back. I’ll still be rapidly approaching 30. It won’t bring the one (or many) that got away back. But it’s an awfully special time. I doubt anyone who was around the Whirlaway on Wednesday, or downtown on Friday, could argue that sports don’t matter. And for the three of us to have such a large group, through this, to celebrate with, well, we’re truly blessed.
Some of you may have seen my facebook recently, where I bemoaned that a bunch of drunken trixies and chads in bars I wouldn’t dare step foot it (and probably wouldn’t be let in to anyway) we’ll get their moment with the Cup, and the majority of us won’t. But I realized what they don’t have. They don’t have Wednesday night. They don’t have the feeling we’ve carried the past few days. They don’t have the bounce in their step that I do. They didn’t share that moment with people it was just as important to, friendships forged out of our common fandom. And I wouldn’t trade that for one minute with the Cup and having to sit on Kaner’s lap to get it any day of the week.
Anyway, thanks for reading this, I found it cathartic.
p.s. I will be doing a commemorative issue of the Committed Indian, and will make a formal announcement on that in the next day or two, so keep an eye out.