From Ghetto to Gloria!
Exhilaration! Exaltation! Ecstasy! Mere “E” words that can’t begin to fully capture the Euphoria that I and many folks in and from the Lou are experiencing today after The Blues have (finally) won the Stanley Cup — 52 YEARS since they first laced them up in the Lou!
I think of my soon-to-be 90- year old dad who took me to my first hockey game, after meeting Blues player and future coach Bill McCreary at a Cardinal baseball game in the the summer of 1967. McCreary sold us on the awesomeness of ice hockey and we have never looked back.
I think of my family and friends and fellow Blues fans who have cheered, complained and suffered with me over decades of promise and disappointment.
And I think of so many players over the years that have given their sweat and blood (and lots of teeth) in an unsuccessful quest for the cherished prize. Prominent among them: Glenn Hall, the Hall of Fame goalie who threw up before very game, Bobby Plager who could throw a hip check like no other and to this day remains the heart and soul of the orgaNIZEation, and his late brother Barclay, who packed more toughness into his small frame than any athlete I ever saw.
I also think of all of the great Number 7’s to wear the Note (before the local kid Pat Maroon took less money to come back home to be with his son and try to win a Cup here). There was Red Berensen, the team’s first offensive threat who made all fellow redheads proud; Garry Unger, the man often called “pretty boy” (they even whistled every time he took the ice in Pittsburgh), but who showed his toughness by playing in a record setting 914 straight games; Joey Mullen, the first American born hockey player to score 500 goals and have over 1000 assists; and Keith Tkachuk, another one of the few Americans to join the 500 goal/1000 assist club and who now incredibly has two sons (and one adopted one, the Blues’ Robert Thomas) playing in the NHL. It only makes sense that the Blues won this thing in 7!
And I think of other great players and leaders like Chris Pronger, Scott Stevens and Brendon Shanahan, and some of the best passing combos in the history of the sport, Federko and Sutter and Hull and Oates. And yet none of these great players were able to bring home the ultimate prize to the Cup-starved St.Louis fans. Instead, it was a dead last team in January with a 4th string rookie goaltender who pulled it off- Are you kidding me?!
And I can’t help but think of the late Dan Kelly- the greatest announcer of the the most difficult game to broadcast who turned me on to the excitement of game as a young boy, and whose son currently continues his legacy with the team. How much would he have enjoyed this moment?
I have so many of my childhood and lifetime memories tied up with this Club; some great, some amusing, and more than a fair share emotionally taxing. A few that stand out:
- The very first year of the Blues in 1967-1968. A team with a losing record who barely made the playoffs (thanks to a format at the time where only four teams of twelve didn’t) but then proceeded to win two playoff rounds against other expansion teams. Their prize? A trip to the Stanley Cup Final against the great Montreal Canadians- the New York Yankees of hockey- winners of TWENTY-FOUR Stanley Cups (fourteen at the time). A complete blow-out was expected. But while the Blues did lose all four games, each loss was only by one goal thanks to the amazing play of goalie Glenn Hall, who won the MVP of the Series despite not winning a single game! When else has that ever happened in any sport?
- The night as a young lad that a former version of these Boston Bruins suddenly stopped play during the middle of the game, skated over to the area where I was seated with my Dad in the first row behind the penalty box, and actually climbed over the glass and into the stands to fight the fan sitting next to me, who was mercilessly tormenting Bruins’ players sitting in the box. (I still remember the fan’s name, Joe Ragney, who delivered a few pretty good punches himself before being escorted from the premises, never to be allowed to return to his season ticket down low)
- The night the Red Baron scored a record-setting SIX goals in Philadelphia, almost in a replay, mantra -like fashion. I can still hear the late great Dan Kelly ‘s voice in my head over and over: “Berensen, around Ed Van Imp, he shoots, he scores.”
- The routine of handsome Blues’ forward Pierre Plante who winked at my young and pretty step-mom every time he came on to the ice and skated by her at the start of the game.
- The lengths I went to to listen to Blues playoff games on the radio when I went off to college in Austin, Texas. Before the advent of out-of-market hockey on TV or the internet, the only way to keep up with the game was on the radio. Although the static was heavy and the reception intermittent, I would drive to the highest hill I could find in Austin that would transmit some semblance of the action on the powerful KMOX radio signal. I remember sitting alone and frustrated in my beat-up station wagon near Mount Bonnel, as the promising first place Blues team of 1980- 1981 were upset by the New York Rangers.
- The shocking and devastating decision by infamous NHL arbitrator Edward Houston in 1991; as punishment for what he said was an improper signing of Brendon Shanahan from the New Jersey Devils, he ruled that the Blues would have to give them Scott Stevens – the Blues best player! What? Stevens then proceeded to captain New Jersey to several Stanley Cups.
- The pandemonium of excitement in Blues Nation when we acquired Wayne Gretzky, the Babe Ruth of hockey, in the middle of the 1996 season. Thousands of “99” jerseys were sold and the expectations were through the roof. However, this was followed a few months later by an excruciating playoff loss to Detroit when the Great One himself turned the puck over at the blue line in Double Overtime of Game 7 and Steve Yzerman beat befuddled back-up goalie Jon Casey from 60 feet away. The fluky goal not only cost the Blues the Series, but likely Gretzky as well — he chose to leave the Lou for the Big Apple the next season, purportedly because of public criticism for his play from the less than lovable coach, Mike Keenan.
- The heartbreaking playoff loss to Detroit once again the following year when in a tight Series with the Blues looking like the better team and optimism spreading that this could finally be their year to win it all, Chris Pronger ( the team’s best player) took an awkward fall chasing this same Steve Yzerman and was injured. The Blues lost the Series, and Detroit went on to win the Stanley Cup that year. Pronger went on to win multiple Stanley Cups — with other teams.
- The enormous anticipation of the 1999-2000 Blues squad, who won the President’s Trophy for the League’s best record, only to lose in the very first round of the playoffs to the 8th place San Jose Sharks.
But that’s now all ancient history. Today I can add the best memory a hockey fan and Blues fan could possible have- a memory that trumps all others: It’s the story of a group of young men; two from Russia, two from Sweden, two Americans (ironically one from St. Louis and the other near Boston) and a very large contingency of Canadians (indeed, more Canadians than any other team), who came from the Ghetto to Gloria in a few short months (a 300-1 proposition!) with a 4th string rookie goalie to achieve the greatest trophy in sports.
I am a very lucky (and ELATED) Man! And I will always bleed Blue!
