Out of the Basement, Onto the Game: NHL Edition

April 30th, 2007

Inspired by the new book Being There, I've asked sports bloggers/fans for their favorite in-person sporting moments. The contributions range from heartfelt and triumphant to absurd and mundane, and they're sure to put a smile on your face. Previous posts focused on MLB, college hoops, the NFL, WWF and NBA, while today's looks at hockey. More to come, so stay tuned and send your own Out of the Basement, Onto the Game moment to dcsportsguy@aol.com. It's almost sure to get posted.

Tom Mantzouranis, The Out Route and FanHouse

It was June of 2003.  Radiohead was about to release Hail to the Thief, and I was going to see the New Jersey Devils play the Anaheim Mighty Ducks in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.  It was going to be a good week, to say the least.  The Devils won that game, 3-0.  I got to see my favorite team, ever, win a championship in person.  I saw the Stanley Cup.  I was there.  I have pictures for posterity.  I lived the dream.

But ten minutes after the game ended, Gary Bettman decided to piss in the punch bowl of this Meadowlands party.  Despite setting a record with seven shutouts in the playoffs (including three in the Finals alone), the league decided to shun goalie Martin Brodeur for the Conn Smythe trophy as playoff MVP, deciding instead to award it to one-year wonder Jean-Sebastian Giguere. It was only the second time a Conn Smythe winner came from the losing team.  Ever.

I've never seen such a mix of the rapturous and riotous.  Yes, the Cup was right there, about to be presented to our red-and-black-clad heroes.  But at that point, all we as fans were concerned about was Bettman ruining our celebration.  He stole our moment.

Over time I've learned to ignore that part.  After all, the Devils were the ones with the real trophy.  And I was there.  No one, save Alzheimer's, will be able to take that memory from me.

Plus, on that night, I really knew what it was like to be part of a brotherhood.  You hear about strangers bonding over a championship team all the time, but that night there was something different, more special, about it.  Unity continued to grip 19,040 strangers, but while we were hugging, tears of joy streaming down, we weren't discussing victory.  We were devising the quickest way to separate Bettman's head from his torso.

Jerry Wilson (a.k.a. The Diecast Dude), Restrictor Plate This!

I preface my story by noting that I am a bit of a rarity: a California born and bred hockey nut.  My love for the game came not through family heritage or athletic association, but rather through that ragtag franchise the Oakland (later California Golden) Seals.  When they first hit the ice in 1967, I was immediately and irrevocably hooked by this most fascinating of games with its perfect combination of speed, skill, and strength.
 
I lived and died with the Seals, transistor radio hidden under my pillow so I could listen to the games well past my appointed bedtime.  As a team the Seals never amounted to much, making the playoffs only twice in their brief existence.  However, it didn't matter.  They were my team, and it was a black day indeed when they moved to Cleveland in the mid-'70s before eventually being absorbed into the then-Minnesota North Stars.
 
For years I stared forlornly at the league standings buried in the back of the sports section, hoping against hope that one day I would again have a team to call my own (being a Bay Area boy, rooting for the Kings simply wasn't an option).  You can imagine my unbridled joy the day the day the NHL, in order to placate the Gund brothers' desire to escape Minnesota and bring the North Stars in a fashion back to Oakland, granted them an expansion franchise out here that due to a rare moment of intelligent thought by voters who had already approved an arena in San Jose became that city's beloved Sharks.
 
My most cherished sports memory, greater than even the pre-earthquake joy of the Bay Bridge World Series of 1989 or seeing my driver Jeff Gordon win in person at Fontana in 2004, came one late September evening in 1991 at the rickety old Cow Palace in Daly City when the Sharks played their first-ever home game, a pre-season tilt against the Vancouver Canucks.  As the Sharks took the ice for the pre-game warm-up, those in attendance stood up and applauded, and as I joined them the overwhelming realization flooded every part of my being: I had a team again.  This is the way sports ought to be, a joyous bond between fan and performer, the latter's skill and determination being saluted by the former.

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