Nothing But Love.

Originally posted on Thursday June 05, 2008 @ 01:55 PM EDT @http://fans.nhl.com/members/JuiceinLA/blogs/16374

A puck slid in slow motion across a blue crease, bouncing and skipping, ever so near a red line, as a (then) 2 time Stanley Cup winning goalie stretched, twisted and strained as if tossed from the seats in cephalopod-ic fashion well after the buzzer sounded. A Heroic (and repeat) effort by the young man in Black, this time thwarted. Two teams fighting past the bitter end.


A throng of red and white suited, scruffy faced, men descended upon the one in goal with complete jubilation. The unfettered joy that comes from winning a prize you’ve spent two months chasing and a lifetime dreaming of. The joy that never lessens, no matter how many times you might get to experience it.


A brilliantly talented Conn Smythe winner skated around in a quick circle showing more emotion than I’d ever seen from him, but also with the grace and humility of a man who knows there is a bigger prize ahead. Neo–like shades of a man who wore the Number 19 pass through my mind.


A perfect Captain lifted a 35 pound Silver Chalice overhead and properly bestowed a kiss, passing it to one who had never before raised a cup in his 17 years in the league, then to a kid from a town of 300 in Newfoundland… and so it went, each player raising, kissing, taking a spin, then passing it to another, from one best friend to the next, from kids to men to elder statesmen, to a man whose second chances and nine lives make me as sappy as his silly toothless grin. From Sweden to Canada, to Russia, to Finland, to the Czech Republic, to the US and back the Cup was passed… and no one’s nationality mattered a bit.


This June 4th, 2008 they all were simply the Best Hockey Players in the World, members of the Red Wing Family. Stanley Cup Champions, several of them 4 times over.


Hats came out, cigars, and more boisterous chaos as the cup got passed around the ice, players, management, owners taking a skate and finally the inevitable silly pile up they call the team photo.



And Lord Stanley’s Cup was won. The most difficult piece of silver in sports to obtain, the chalice that no one wins until they leave it all out there on the ice in appeasement of the hockey gods, was home.


I didn’t know what I would write on this first day after finally watching these indestructible Red Wings hoist the Cup- but when I woke this morning, everything in my head and heart had settled and these are the thoughts that rose to the top, like a slow sepia tinged montage of an amazing night that will last a very very long time.


(I’d tell you to cue the freaking orchestra and grab some Dramamine, if I were myself this morning, but I am not. I am an elated Red Wings fan and my team has just won the Stanley Cup, so “vurp” if you must- I am going to let myself be as sappy and emotional as I possibly can.)



A lone fan sat in her Brentwood condo with tear stained cheeks and a smile that couldn’t be wiped away, fielding calls from family members across country.



“We did it!” a Mom cried from Phoenix.



“Yee Haw, They did it!!!!!” from a Sister in Santa Barbara.



“go wings!” from my amazing 18 month old niece. (yes we have been repated this so much she finally picked up on it.)



“Wish we could have watched it together” from a Brother who had this very day flown to the D.



Through my tears of joy, I wished it too.



NHL Hockey is a family affair in my world. My mom’s long time boyfriend gave my brother and I some of the best memories of our silly little lives in the form of seats to Wings games throughout the late 1990’s, where we had the inordinate and impossible luck to sit 18 rows up behind the penalty box for well over 15 games a season.



My grandpa smuggled my sister and I into a game at the Olympia by bringing the ticket takers a six pack of Pabst.


My mother, brother and I watched almost every single playoff game together from 1995 through 2002.



Then we all left the D, spread across the country and I began to feel the pangs of watching alone.
When we do get together for playoff games now, we cherish it as if it were Christmas. I had many games with my Brother and Sister this year, but not all of them. Not last night.



I wanted to hug my brother screaming, jumping up and down, maybe even crack a tasty (albeit undeserved unearned) bottle of bubbly and toast with my sister and mom. But we were a continent apart, able only to text and call. I was sobbing, I could hear my brother choke up a little. But we were apart and I was alone.



Except I wasn’t.



Early in these Playoffs, I discovered the most wonderful live game time online forum of others like me, to share the experience with. It’s amazing to me that you can feel so connected just through words typed into a temporary cyberspace forum. But it happened, over the course of these last two months, we learned about each other, we praised each other, we stuck up for each other.



I now have a friend in Ohio who runs (among other things) a foundation in honor of his baby girl, I have a friend in Chicago who has insane talent and the kind of calming, sage, intellect I only aspire to, I have a friend in Canada somewhere whose too young to drink beer, and who despite proclaiming she’s shy, found a voice in this forum, I have a friend in North Carolina (I think) whose nervousness, superstitions and excitement for each playoff game always warmed my heart. I have friends in Iowa and Guam who struggle with all their might just to get reception through bad connections and tornado warnings. I have a friend in Toronto who borrows laptops just to connect on game day!



I even have a friend who is (in his own words)a “rabid” Penguins fan, and who watched his team’s rise and fall from a hotel in Madison, Wisconsin online with a bunch of crazed Red Wing fans. I don’t totally understand him, but I know I luv ‘em!


I have 40 more amazing friends, from all around this continent: Toronto and other parts of our neighbor to the north, New York, Florida, Tenn, Wisconsin, Oregon, Colorado, Iowa, Hawaii, Calgary, Guam, Texas, Cali, Sweden, Northern and Western Michigan and of course the D, its Downtown and suburbs.



We are all ages, from our late teens to our 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. We come from all walks of life.



We are huge part of the reason they call Detroit “Hockeytown”. Bcause no matter where we have spread to, where we live, we love our Wings:whether in sickness or health, in (os)good and “dead” times.



We are not definable by Nielsen ratings, but we are just as loyal as the guy who smuggled the octopus into the Igloo and then bought another ticket to go back in when he got kicked out.



The reason they call Detroit “Hockeytown”, and the reason it deserves the moniker is often debated- but here’s one more in the “totally deserves and earns it” column:World-wide, Red Wing Fans are people who so love the Detroit Red Wing Franchise that they have to connect in anyway possible with their own kind. We live and die by this team no matter where we are.



A world wide out pouring of love and respect. Case in point- a wonderful co-worker – a Diehard LA Kings Fan, who lives and dies with his own hometown team understood as he handed me his replica Stanley Cup trophy today and said- “You can borrow this for a little bit.” I placed it on the ledge of my office window.



And then the water works started all over again.



A solitary Red Wings fan sat in her California living room, far from family, far from Detroit, far from the Team, watching her beloved team hoist the Stanley Cup and she wasn’t alone.



Congratulations Detroit Red Wings, once more you have brought me to tears and made me proud of you and my hometown. You have brought me friends and given me so much in this life time that I can’t possibly express it here.



Nothing but love.





Copyrighted 2008, all rights reserved by Behrgreer Ltd. and the author. No reproduction or use without the express written permission of the author.