ST. LOUIS —
Glory, Glory, Glor-eeAHHHHHHHHHHH!
24 hours a radio station playing only one song? I think I would go stir crazy by listening to a song I liked for 24 hours straight. But I realize it’s not the song, it's what it represents. So, for today we’ll let that pass.
Songs, dynamic numerology, emotional waterfalls, all wrapped up I a hockey game. This morning it’s time for it all to pour out.
First, the music. What does the song represent? Are we okay with Gloria being the anthem for the Blues and their march toward hockey immortality?
As an aside, Laura Branigan’s song was a hit in 1982. That was a pretty good year in St. Louis, right? The year Whiteyball ruled the baseball world. That team had an anthem, too –Celebration, by Kool and the Gang - so there’s that bit of synergy. And for the next few minutes we’ll roll with Gloria, and composer Umberto Tozzi’s lyrics.
You’re always on the run now.
That’s an accurate depiction of the franchise. It’s been trying on the nerves as the Blues have tried to recapture the, ahem, glory of their first three years; making the Stanley Cup finals each time, and after going oh-fer each time the Blues have never been back.
They’ve run from creditors, nearly going under twice, nearly becoming the Saskatoon Blues (which would have been as odd a sports amalgam as the Utah Jazz); surviving the hand-to-mouth, bare bones Harry Ornest era when penny pinching became penny strangling; hacking off the greatest player in hockey history and literally pushing him into free agency; becoming the league’s bottom feeder when Bill Laurie couldn’t get enough leverage to get an NBA team here and emaciated the franchise; and throughout, always seeming to be good enough to make the playoffs but not good enough to be taken seriously.
Oh, there were times you had to take the Blues seriously – in 1981 they came out of nowhere with a precocious team led by All-World goalie Mike Liut and challenged the great Islanders dynasty for the best team in the NHL right down to the end of the regular season – in 1996 Mike Keenan (insert hiss! here) put together a team that was a legitimate challenger for The Cup – in 2000, Joel Quenneville guided the Blues to the President’s Trophy for being the best team in the regular season, with goaltender Roman Turek seemingly being the missing piece to rolling to the championship.
But each time Fate got in the way.
Injuries (Perry Turnbull in ’81, Grant Fuhr in ’96) and just fluky happenings (Turek must still be shaking his head at how he let Owen Nolan’s center-ice slap shot beat him). Even when Fate was kind, like 1986, giving us the Monday Night Miracle and putting Jacques Demers’ plucky bunch - a team that probably had no business being there - sixty minutes from the finals - the the fickle finger of Fate went away and the Blues’ hopes - and the Blues themselves, literally – were stranded in Calgary. You can look it up.
I think you’ve got to slow down
This year’s team was supposed to do great things, but all they did for three months was underperform, get a coach fired, have the entire fanbase question management’s decision-making and the team’s leadership group, and sink to the bottom of the standings.
Then Craig Berube instilled accountability and belief and installed rookie Jordan Binnington in goal, and it the Blues took off like a comet – for a few hours they could claim going from last in the league to first in their division.
But then what? It’s been nice, guys, but now it’s the playoffs. The playoffs are where the dreams of Blues fans go to die. Two inspiring road wins in Winnipeg built up the hopes, and then two home losses threw water on the fire.
All the voices in your head calling, Gloria
Fifty-two years of ultimate disappointment tends to make a fan base a little skittish.
Great moments, like the Manitoba Miracle in Game Five against the Jets, have to be followed by an equal or even greater thud! immediately following. It’s not Newton’s Third Law, it’s simply the Law of the Note. We want to believe, we’re aching to believe, but we always get let down.
More on that in a minute.
You don’t have to answer
This team – this team – seems different.
Not the team led by a singular superstar like Unger, Liut, Hull, nor are they a team with electric personalities like the megawatt Golden Brett or the effervescent coach Demers. Truth be told, from a media standpoint there aren’t a lot of go-to personalities when it comes to quotes and soundbites; Eh might summarize it. We were spoiled by the Ken Hitchcock days, when every question drew out linguistic gold. After Craig Berube’s first time in front of the cameras, we in the media weren’t overjoyed – workmanlike, matter-of-fact, to-the-point sound bites came out of his mouth. Now, a team doesn’t hire players or a coach based on his quotability, so we need to get over ourselves.
But believe me, workmanlike, matter-of-fact and to-the-point soundbites from a coach and his players are easier to swallow when a.) there’s no BS, and b.) wins follow. And the realization is this – what you see is what you get, and workmanlike, matter-of-fact and to-the-point is the way to describe this team on the ice as well as off it.
I think they got your number
Dallas represented a new challenge – the aura of the hometown goalie, but the real substance of speed that the Blues don’t have. When the Stars got to their game, they were frightening to witness. There was another gear that left the Blues sucking in their exhaust fumes. The roller coaster playoff ride continued – the wins were great (Pat Maroon’s goal at the end of Game Three was exhilarating) but the lows were deflating. Facing elimination and headed to Dallas left prospects for future games grim.
Was it something that he said
“They’ll be ready.”
“I think we all believe we’re going back for Game Seven. Why wouldn’t we?”
Belief. Don’t you feel it when someone believes in you – really believes in you? You find another level, another gear. And in the Blues case, they did, and dominated Game Six.
Getting pregame reactions from the team in December was as unwanted as a trip to get root canal – not pleasant. The interviews were uncomfortable and forced.
But when the Berube system took root, the confidence grew. He is a coach very comfortable in who he is and what he believes in. There isn’t once cell of phoniness to the man.
Belief is contagious – it spawns confidence, which leads to winning, and that feeds off of itself.
But Game Seven is a different animal.
Gloria, how’s it gonna go down
If a playoff run is a roller coaster ride, then a Game Seven is like the climb up the tracks followed by the plunge down on the thrill ride.
The early goal by Vince Dunn was uplifting – NBC’s Pierre McGuire quoted it as 70-percent of the teams scoring first in a Game Seven go on to win.
Yeah but…
The Stars tying it when fate loaded up on the Blues: Binnington losing his stick, David Perron’s pass in his own end pinballing off the official’s skate and then the rim of the cage and just laying out in the purgatory of open ice – ugh!
Deflating.
The Blues dominating play for two periods: outshooting Dallas 18-1 in the second, 31-4 for the rest of regulation. Wow – pouring shot after shot and coming in wave after wave on Ben Bishop.
Empowering.
But no goals to show for it. Bishop standing on his head.
Maddening.
Overtime comes and the wave shifts. Now it’s Dallas with the burst of energy, bringing the play to the Blues end as the home team hangs on for dear life.
Frightening.
I think you’re headed for a breakdown
I had a hair brained thought that maybe Stars’ coach Jim Montgomery had devised a hockey version of the Rope-A-Dope, the Muhammad Ali strategy against the powerful, menacing George Foreman: withstand Big George’s barrage of punches, let him punch himself out and then come on strong at the end.
(Sure, you goof – the coach on the road is going to risk getting his team blown out in the hope of getting to overtime and winning it there.
Umm, that’s what rooting for this team for a half a century will do to your mind!)
As the first overtime bled into the second, the Stars continued to have wonderful chances to win. But Binnington, who had to be bored earlier as he watched his team keep play in the other end, was up to the challenge and make acrobatic, desperate saves of his own.
Bishop was heroic. Binnington wasn’t nervous.
So be careful not to show it
The NBCSN cameras showed an exhausted Brayden Schenn on the bench – he had spent the last four hours pouring himself out on to the ice, hitting anything that moved, creating chances and scoring opportunities, with nothing to show for it. His teammates on the bench joined him in putting their heads down, collecting their thoughts and searching for the breath and energy for the next shift.
The director cuts to another shot – this time of fans looking ill at ease, nervous, exhausted without having played a second in the game – summoning up the wherewithal for one more exhortation of “Let’s Go Blues!”
Nerve-wracking – or Nerve racking, as Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki tweeted out.
Leave them hanging on the line
Then it comes – Stars’ captain Jamie Benn pressuring in the Blues’ zone, forces an opportunity, goes around the back of the goal for the wraparound; Binnington stretching his leg out, trying to get the pad over in time to cover.
The game right there just inches away.
(Sucking in breath)
“How in the #@!%&*!@# world did that not go in??!!!”
The puck went under the pad, at least half, but not all, of it crossing the goal line, and then squirting out into the crease and ultimately leaking out and on to Colton Parayko’s stick.
My last nerve is now shot.
My mind had been racing for ninety minutes, trying to come up with who I thought would finally be the hero and end this damned game.
Schenn, who played so magnificently with no stats to bear it out.
Parayko, a howitzer ready to fire another blast at any second.
Robert Thomas, the nineteen-year-old who has been dazzling for the past three games and with the skill set to create an opportunity out of nothing.
And yeah, the kid from Oakville, too. Gotta give kudos to Frank Cusumano.
Shall I go through the numerology? Game Seven. May 7. 7 p.m.. start time. Suiting up for the Blues with uniform number seven: Patrick Maroon.
That’s too corny to play out, isn’t it?
As that was swirling in my brain matter, so to was the old song by The Clash – Should I Stay Or Should I Go? I was still at work, alone in the sports office. Even if I left at the end of a period there is no way I get home without missing some action. I wanted to see how this one would end - even if it meant witnessing another season-ending punch to the gut.
But common sense was on the other shoulder, reminding me that I had to get up early the next morning to come back downtown. I decided to stick it out for the rest of the second overtime and then revisit.
All that brain activity was to keep the dread I was feeling from bubbling to the surface.
Calling Gloria…
14:15 to go in the second overtime. Blues mounting one more assault on Bishop. Pietrangelo slap shot sails high, the 6’7 Bishop reaching skyward while Ryan O’Reilly and Radek Faksa alternately reached for a possible deflection and ducking. O’Reilly’s centering pass for Oscar Sundqvist is deflected out of play.
(I don’t know about you, but I was incredulous as to how Bishop could be playing so well while the collarbone that took the brunt of Parayko’s Sunday slapper had to be aching.
(Adrenaline is a wonderful thing, I suppose.)
The Blues switch up and go with their most consistently effective line all series.
Tyler Bozak wins the faceoff – Maroon and John Klingberg fight for the puck as it goes to Thomas, who circles and goes on the attack. Amazingly, the shot goes past Bishop and off the goalpost; Bishop contorts his body as if to keep the puck from hitting his back and rolling in. Instead it sits in the blue paint of the crease.
Maroon skates a straight line toward the goal.
He has had a circuitous route to get to this point this season. After his well-told homecoming story and getting to be around his son more, the tale became a nightmare of goal-less nights and mounting self-induced pressure to raise his game. Observers thought he would be the first move in a trade-deadline house cleaning. But the subtle changes in the Blues’ offensive scheme, not-so-subtly pounding teams into submission with relentless fore-checking, buzzing the opponent’s crease and firing at will played right into The Big Rig’s game. He survived the deadline, his scoring touch reemerged, and Berube’s combining of Maroon with the young rookie Thomas and the grinding Bozak made them a lethal line. Their comfort with each other has been noticeable. Maroon was taking up squatter-like space in front of Bishop all series long.
And then one more time.
The goalie was on his posterior, unable to get his stick untangled to give him aid. Dallas defenseman Miro Heiskanen, his speed a real thorn to the Blues all series long, was too late to reach the puck, and his swipe at Maroon’s stick was futile. Like flipping a hamburger, The Big Rig scooped the quiet puck up and across the goal line.
Yes!
Joy at Enterprise Center. Unless you were wearing Stars green.
The ref signals a good goal and then gets the heck off the ice.
The Blues converge in a mass hug of relief and celebration.
Berube and his coaches embrace.
The warrior Bishop skates off with his head down, task unfulfilled.
The fans in front pound the glass – those not in front pound each other in happiness.
Before joining the handshake line, Berube looks out on the ice as if he’s caught somebody’s eye and gives a fist pump of congratulations.
I stay to watch the handshake line – further amazing me as to how these combatants can show visceral dislike towards each other and yet flip the switch at series’ end and offer handshakes and hugs of hard-fought respect. It truly is one of the greatest traditions in sports.
I notice Binnington, who claimed he didn’t know who Jim Montgomery, the Stars’ coach, was early in the series, stopping to share words and hear the coach give him praise.
O’Reilly, who endured a tough, quiet series, enjoying his first second handshake line of a playoff postseason.
Benn, who has seen his season end twice in a second round, Game Seven loss to the Blues, looks disconsolate.
The telecast shows a replay completing Berube’s celebratory fist shake, and who it was directed it – Maroon skates into the picture and the two enjoy a long hug.
Belief rewarded.
Maroon does post game interviews on the bench while his son expresses his happiness.
In a video that’s gone viral, the ten-year-old Anthony Maroon is crying – embarrassing maybe, to a young man not wanting his friends to see it.
But they will. As does the hockey world.
As a parent, I’ve got a lump in my throat that won’t go away because I keep seeing that in my mind’s eye. As parents we cry when we see our kids have a big moment. Any parent seeing those tears and not smiling/tearing up/ getting choked up – well, you just might have to check your pulse.
Glory, Glory, Glor-eeAHHHHHHHHHHH!
So bring it on – 24 hours of Gloria. Celebrate and enjoy.
Now for some reality: With eight postseason wins, the Blues are still only halfway to the prize.
It’s their second trip to Hockey’s Final Four in four years, but they haven’t been to the finals since 1970.
I was eight then. And I remember seeing Bobby Orr flying through the air like the iconic photo – the great Blues announcer Dan Kelly made the call on CBS, who had the NHL rights then – and that Sunday game four was the only one they televised.
Now in 2019, I want more.
In this moment, the feeling is delicious.
But let’s gear up, and get it going again.
For me, eight isn’t nearly enough.