Allow me to describe a level of emotional agony akin to organ removal without anesthesia. But first, some background.
I’m a devoted fan of the NHL’s St. Louis Blues. This dates back more than four decades, to my family’s move from Southern California to Vermont. If you don’t have a hockey team in New England as a 13-year-old boy, you are excluded from 60 percent of lunchtime or after-school conversations. Instead of adopting the Boston Bruins or Montreal Canadiens — proud “Original Six” franchises with regional draw — I chose the Blues, a team that plays in the same city as my beloved St. Louis Cardinals (a devotion that goes back three generations). While most of my pals celebrated the likes of Ray Bourque and Guy Lafleur, I found new heroes in Bernie Federko, Brian Sutter, and upon his arrival in 1988, Brett Hull.
Lots (lots) of springtime disappointment came with my hockey fandom. St. Louis made the playoffs 25 consecutive years (1980-2004) without so much as reaching the Stanley Cup Final. A year after parting ways with Hull (the greatest player in franchise history), the Blues lost to Hull’s Dallas Stars in the 1999 tournament. They put up the best record in the NHL in 2000, only to lose to San Jose in the first round.
But then there’s 2019. My St. Louis Blues started the calendar year with the worst record in hockey, only to discover themselves in front of a rookie goaltender (Jordan Binnington) and somehow beat the Boston Bruins in seven games to win the Stanley Cup for the first time in the franchise’s 52-year history. It’s as close to pure bliss as I’ve felt — in the realm of sports — as an adult man.
All of which leads me to May 4th of this year. After a late-season rally that included a franchise-record 12-game winning streak, the Blues qualified for the playoffs. That was the good news. In the opening round, though, they would face the Winnipeg Jets, this season’s winner of the Presidents’ Trophy (for the league’s best record). Each of the first six games went to the home team, so the Blues took to the ice in Manitoba for Game 7 with a chance to shock a league and two countries. St. Louis held a 3-1 lead(!) with two minutes to play in the game … and lost. The Jets scored the game-tying goal with two seconds left on the clock, then scored the series-winner in the second overtime period.
I’ve actually had an organ (appendix) removed. Let me tell you: There was less hangover after that procedure than the one I’ve suffered since the Blues’ Manitoba Meltdown. And it has me wondering: Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we allow professional teams to steer our emotional ship with such volatility?
In pondering this dilemma of fandom, I think of two now-cliched truths. First, as Jerry Seinfeld emphasized, we’re rooting for laundry. No Memphis Tiger fan who saw Mario Chalmers in the 2008 NCAA championship would become a fan of that player … until he wore the uniform of the Memphis Grizzlies. Secondly, as my wife often notes (echoing many other spouses), “Those players don’t even know you.”
This soon after the Blues’ collapse, I don’t have an easy answer, though I know it has layers. Had Winnipeg dominated St. Louis in that Game 7 and won a blowout, I would have moved on to baseball season the next day. And without agonizing. But two seconds from victory? Who are these “hockey gods”? If the players don’t know me, those evil ice spirits sure seem to.
We attach ourselves to teams for the same reason those strangers wear the laundry: We want to be part of something memorable, and with others. You remember the dreadful days and months of the pandemic. With no team sports, it wasn’t the standings or scores we missed, but the community. And the communal effort. Now and then, miraculously, the communal effort reaches the proverbial mountain peak, and you see your team — your strangers in familiar garb — skate under the greatest trophy in sports. More often, you see your team’s season spoiled by another, and other fans celebrate your personal agony. We’ll get ’em next year!
The older we get, the fewer “next years” we can count on. And this is a factor in my current hockey hangover. The corollary: I’m more grateful, with every passing spring, for the time (now six years ago) when the St. Louis Blues were the best hockey team in the world.
My hope is that you experience the bliss of a championship for your team(s) of choice. One will do. If you’ve stood on that peak already, save some rooting interest for the likes of the Winnipeg Jets (damn them), never champions, never finalists. If it’s about the journey, as they tell us, it’s also about forgetting the pain of defeat, leaving it behind like the discomfort of an appendectomy. The scars may not heal entirely. But somehow, in the land of professional team sports, they’re worth it.
Frank Murtaugh is the managing editor of Memphis Magazine. He writes the columns “From My Seat” and “Tiger Blue” for the Flyer.
