BOSTON, MA – Only one team gets to hoist the 34 1/2 pound series-clinching trophy for the ceremonial victory lap around the arena. Before even starting today’s post, let’s get one thing straight: anything that heavy, is hardly a cup. A cup is something you lift with one hand that holds your morning coffee – or the hockey equipment protecting the family hardware… but Coupe de Stanley is what separates fan-dom from the other team sports. Hockey fans are a rabid bunch; you’re “all in” at this time of year and nothing comes close or means as much as the NHL Playoffs.
Allow me to explain what can only be described as an unhealthy, if not unholy (unanswered prayers and lighted religious candles) relationship with my favorite team, the Boston Bruins, in my favorite sport; hockey.
Approaching my forty-seventh birthday (43 of which have been attached to the Black & Gold), I admittedly act like a four-year-old when the team is in playoff trouble like it is now. Don’t listen to sports radio or watch the highlight shows after a loss, so as not to endure the pain of hearing or seeing the previous night’s depressing result. It wasn’t until this past Wednesday afternoon or approximately ten months later that I could bring myself to watch last year’s Game 6 Stanley Cup loss to Chicago on NHL Network, so you get the idea.
There are the other senses involved with vying for the Stanley Cup, too. Victory gets so close with a third win, you can almost taste the clincher. If you’re lucky enough to have your team win the whole damn thing like in 2011 when the Bruins beat the Canucks, you quote Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore as being champions is like the smell of napalm in the morning with the hockey world left in conquest’s aftermath. Attending the Finals Game 6 in 2011 at TDGarden was deafening as well and let me know I was f***ing alive!
Life happens… Your father passes away. You get cancer. Get married & have a kid. Buy a house. Get divorced. Your mother dies. You get married again. Have two more kids. Buy a house again. Have spinal surgery. Get a dog. Cancer comes a knockin’ one more time. Wife and kids leave the house. You begin bankruptcy proceedings.
The Dallas Cowboys have been part of life as well, but there has been one real constant – the Boston Bruins.
Childhood: The Bobby Orr years.
Adolescence and early adulthood: St. Raymond [Bourque] and Cam Neely.
Five to seven year sentence of futility to present day: Bergeron and Big Zedeno Chara years.
There have been more Cup failures, but 2011 makes death palatable. I live for Bruins hockey the same way many of you live for their Rangers or Devils or Wild.
Easter is about resurrection and maybe the B’s do likewise.
My name is Cheesy Bruin and I have a hockey problem. LET’S GO BRUINS!!!
The funny(?) DJ Eberle, tomorrow.
