My history with the Boston Bruins dates back to the 50s. My father took my older brother and me to a game at which both Stan Mikita and Bobby Hull scored hat tricks for the Chicago Blackhawks. My youngest sister and I watched Bobby Orr score the winning goal against the St. Louis Blues on the grandmother’s black-and-white Zenith TV in Maine. The following spring the great comeback by the Canadians crushed the hearts of the faithful, although the following year the hometown team recaptured the Cup against the NY Rangers.
Then nothing.
39 years of blank.
My interests in the Boston Bruins dwindled with each disappointment and last year’s collapse against the Philadelphia Flyers ( up 3-0 and losing 4-3 ) relegated my longstanding allegiance into the same category at my support for Boston’s soccer team. Wait till next year became a mocking chant. Wait for never was the reality, so when the Bruins began their Stanley Cup campaign of 2011, I prepared my wounded pysche for yet another short show, however they beat Les Habs in a 7th game overtime. Revenge against the Flyers took 7 games. The same number were required to vanquish the Tampa bay Lightning. Last team on the slate were the Vancouver Canucks; tough goalie, hard-hitting, dirty, great power-play, and their name had never graced the Stanley Cup.
The Bruins went two games down on the West Coast and then pummeled the Canucks at home. 2-2. We traded the next two games to set up a 7th game in Vancouver. Last Wednesday I walked down the street in my Bruins regalia. Brooklyn is not a hockey town, although the few Ranger fans on the sidewalk raised their fist and shouted, “Go, Bruins.”
The Canucks were a dirty team and our teams came from the original 6 of the NHL. My skin sizzled with anticipation of the dropped puck and I entered the bar to take a seast at the bar. Two other Bruins fans were staring at the TV. We acknowledge each other with a nod. Our nervousness allowed no further greeting. The bartender put a draft Stella in front of me. He knew my order, since I had abandoned Frank’s Lounge for Mullane’s during the Stanley Cup. Frank’s is even less hockey than Brooklyn.
The national anthem were sung by fat men in tuxedo and the sell-out crowd cheered their team for every hit, shot, and save of the first period. The score was 1-0 Bruins. The 2nd period ended with us up 3-0. The final was 4-0. I had drunk at least six beers and was good friends with everyone in the bar. A young Bruins fan and I traded shots of tequila. I fielded phone calls from friends and family. I got into a stupid fight with my younger brother about racism in Boston. Paddy hung up on me and wouldn’t answer the phone. I staggered home and fell into my bed wearing the Bruins jersey that Paddy had bought me in 1988. I remembered stuffing cherries into my mouth and then woke to a dream about teenage girls’ hardened nipples.
It was 8:20. I had to be at work within the hour.
Cherry pits were stuck to my face and chest along with smushed cherries.
Sometimes your dreams are a way of telling your brains that you had too much to drink and I rubbed the cherry pits off my bodies. I tried calling my brother. He wasn’t answering my call and I opened my emails. Somehow I had been stupid enough to write him a message before crashing out. His response titled DON’T EMAIL ME ANYMORE.
“I called to talk hockey and Stanley Cup, not to suffer your sanctimonious pontifications. If I cannot talk sports to you without offending your over-inflated opinion of yourself which others do not share, then we just won’t talk to each other.”
Opps.
My calls were cold-shouldered without any response.
“Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.”
I went to work and read about the riots in Vancouver. The Canucks were sore losers. My hang-over disappeared by mid-afternoon. My regrets about what I had said to my brother lingered into the night. We were family and I had to make this wrong right.
I was fifteen minutes late to the diamond exchange. Manny was pissed at me as usual. I hadn’t been on time for years. My Brazilian co-workers arrived ten minutes after me. Traffic in New Jersey was brutal. Too many people came to the City for work. There were no new jobs in their state.
Ava draped a scarf over her shoulders. The air-conditioning in the exchange worked great in the morning. “I was walking by the NHL store on the corner and there were a lot of people inside. TV cameras too.”
TV cameras, fans, and NHL store said one thing. Some Bruins were in the store. I put down the diamonds and ran out of the store, telling a perplexed Manny, “I’ll be back in five.”
I hurried down 47th Street, weaving through the gauntlet of gold buyers blocking the sidewalk. The pedestrian light at 6th Avenue was against me. I dodged the oncoming traffic like a matador avoiding a herd of bulls and beelined into the NHL store. Bruin uniforms adorned the two mannequins at the entrance. A crowd of fans stood beneath the TV room on the 2nd floor. Their eyes were locked on the silver object above them.
The Stanley Cup bracketed by the MVP goalie, Tim Thomas, the monster defenseman Chara, and Bergeron the attacker. They were finishing the interview for ESPN and Bergeron exited onto the walkway to the stairs carrying the trophy.
“Go Bruins. Show us the Cup.” I shouted like a 12 year-old and Bergeron hoisted the Cup. Tears came to my eyes and for the briefest of moments I was 8 years-old at the Boston Garden with my father and older brother.
“Go Bruins.”
I went outside and called Padraic. His last message had included the ultimatum ‘call me if you’re a man’. He answered on the first ring.
“I just saw the Cup at the NHL store. I just saw the Cup. I can’t talk right now. I’m too overwhelmed. Go Bruins.”
“Go Bruins.” My brother was a big fan. All was forgiven. Sports are like that. They span the ages and differences.
“Go Bruins.”
Indeed.