39 seasons.... Worth the Wait

Modified Oct 17, 2019 05:05 GMT

Throughout the summer of 2019, you would have seen stories about Stanley Cup Champions, St. Louis Blues. This is the team that waited the longest for its first NHL Championship.... 52 years (51 seasons to be exact since a lockout by ownership took away the 2004-05 campaign).

I'm almost the same age as the Blues franchise but I didn't start getting into hockey until I was about 12. I had been to a few games here and there but I didn't have a team to get behind. That all changed during the 1980-81 season when I started rooting for the Blues. Though I've never lived in St. Louis I have always rooted for their teams. That includes of course the Baseball Cardinals but I was also a fan of the two NFL franchises which played there, the Football Cardinals and the Rams who of course have relocated. I also plan to get behind the new MLS franchise which starts play in 2022 and even the new XFL Battlehawks.

I didn't have to wait long to experience a Cardinals championship. In 1982, the third season I rooted for them, the Redbirds defeated Milwaukee for their first title since 1967. I became a fan mainly because Whitey Herzog had become their manager. You see I was a Kansas City Royals fan first and I still root for them. I get a lot of flack from other Royals fans for rooting for that other team on the Eastern side of Missouri but I was furious when the Royals fired Whitey after the 1979 season so when the Cards snapped him up, St. Louis became my National League team.

I was a St. Louis Football fan for 30 years since the Cardinals and the Rams stay in the city. I was a fan of he Big Red for their final nine seasons in St. Louis. They made the playoffs once and then had a gut-wrenching end to the 1984 season when a missed Field Goal turned what would have been an NFC East title into a date with the couch for the NFL Playoffs. As for the Rams, in their fifth season in St. Louis The Greatest Show on Turf rose to power and brought the Gateway City its only Super Bowl title (sorry Los Angeles, the Rams won the championship but not in your city). Even more exciting was the fact that I was fortunate enough to have a media credential to Super Bowl XXXIV and was able to do interviews after that game and during the week leading up to the contest with the likes of Dick Vermeil, Kurt Warner, Torry Holt and more.

The St. Louis Hawks won an NBA Championship in 1958 but that was before I was born and the team has called Atlanta home just about as long as I've been alive. So the Blues were the St. Louis team that I stayed with the longest without seeing them win a title and there were many years of frustration to go through.

I watched my first Blues game in 1979 but during the 1980-81 season I started rooting for them full time as they rolled to the Smythe Division title before falling to the New York Rangers in the second round of the playoffs. Little did I know at the time what I was in for. The Blues were a good team....always in the playoffs but never could snatch the prize. In fact they made the Stanley Cup Playoffs for 25 consecutive years from 1980-2004 without a single appearance in the Final.

During that period of time there were many disappointments including double-overtime Game 7 losses in the second round in 1984 and 1996 against the Minnesota North Stars (now the Dallas Stars) and the Detroit Red Wings respectively. There was the 2000 season when the Blues won the President's Trophy emblematic of the league's best record only to bow in seven games in the first round to San Jose. There were also two Conference Final appearances which included a narrow Game 7 loss to Calgary in 1986 and a defeat in five games by Colorado in 2001.

So many great players had passed through St. Louis....players who would go on to win the Stanley Cup with other teams like Brendan Shanahan, Rob Ramage, Joe Mullen, Chris Pronger and most notably, Brett Hull (who of course is back in the Blues front office). Coaches also failed to win a Cup in St. Louis then won elsewhere including Scotty Bowman, Al Arbour, Jacque Demers and especially frustrating, Joel Quenneville who won three times with the hated Chicago Blackhawks.

In the mid 2000's after the NHL lockout, the team was stripped down by then-owner Bill Laurie who sold the team to entertainment magnate Dave Checketts. In the years that followed, the Blues missed the playoffs five out of six seasons and in their one appearance in 2009 they were swept out in the first round by Vancouver. However, in 2012 I began to sense things were turning around even with more disappointment on the way.

In 2012, the Blues won their first division title in 12 years, just their second in the last 25 years and won their first playoff series in a decade before falling in the second round to the eventual Stanley Cup Champion Los Angeles Kings, one of the teams that joined the NHL at the same time as St. Louis which now ended a drought of its own.

After that series with LA a businessman named Tom Stillman put together a local ownership group to purchase the team with the goal to win the Stanley Cup. This was a significant development since the Blues were lagging behind the Cardinals and the Rams for corporate support in the community. Stillman was determined to change that.

Another division title followed in 2015 amid three straight first round exits despite hearing the media say repeatedly that the Blues were "built to win the Cup." Then in 2016 it seems things began to change again for the better. The Blues outlasted the defending Stanley Cup Champion Blackhawks in seven games in the first round then battled past Dallas to advance to their first Conference Final in 15 years. Though they lost in six games to San Jose, you got the feeling that the Blues would not have to wait a decade and a half to venture this far again.

In 2017 and 2018 it appeared the Blues were going in the wrong direction. A second round playoff loss to division rival Nashville in '17 was followed by the team missing the playoffs entirely in 2018. Then the 2018-19 season couldn't have started off more disastrously. A team already laden with veteran players which had just acquired Ryan O'Reilly in a trade with Buffalo was supposed to compete for the title but instead plummeted to the bottom of the league standings by New Year's Day. Two head coaches had been fired 21 and a half months apart. Then on November 20, Craig Berube, an assistant since 2017 assumed the role of Interim Head Coach. What happened in the first five and a half months of calendar year 2019 was surreal, thrilling and unbelievable.

In addition to coach Berube's arrival, a little known goaltender named Jordan Binnington was inserted into the starting lineup on January 7 and that night he shut out Philadelphia 3-0. That seemed to spark the team which eventually went on a club-record 11-game winning streak and picked up 65 points between January 3 and the end of the regular season on April 6. The Blues improved so much that they actually held first place in the Central Division for a few hours on that final Saturday before settling for third when Winnipeg and Nashville won their games that evening.

When the playoffs began, the big question remained as to whether the Blues could continue their momentum. After the first two games in Winnipeg it appeared that it would as St. Louis picked up two one-goal wins but losses at home in Games 3 and 4 brought with them some doubt. Then in Game 5 Jaden Schwartz scored an improbable goal with 15 seconds left to give the series lead back to the Note and they would hang on to close out the Jets in Game 6 at home.

The second round was a rematch from a series with Dallas three years earlier and just like in 2016 this series went seven games except this time the Blues needed to win Game 6 on the road to stay alive which they did. Game 7 was one of the most heart-stopping games I've ever witnessed.with another double-overtime thriller. When the Stars nearly scored in the second OT I had vivid flashbacks to those losses to Minnesota in '84 and Detroit in '96, but this time Jordan Binnington kept the puck out of the net and a few minutes later, St. Louis native Patrick Maroon scored the game winning goal to send the Blues to their second conference final in the last four years.

Once again, San Jose was the opponent and the Sharks with their size advantage were favored. San Jose won Game 1 easily but the Blues battled back to win Game 2. Game 3 was a roller coaster of emotions. The Sharks led 2-0 after one period and appeared to be in control but then the Blues caught fire in the second period and led 4-3. They held on to that lead until the Sharks scored with an extra skater with one minute left in regulation and the game went to overtime. It was in the extra session that the Sharks won the game on a goal set up by an illegal hand pass that somehow the officials didn't see and the league said was not for review.

The Blues were mad and could have folded after such a devastating loss but instead it galvanized them. They outscored San Jose 12-2 over the last three games and won the series 4 games to 2 while securing their first trip to the Stanley Cup Final since 1970 and the first since I became a fan. Until they won Game 6 the only other time I had seen the Blues this close to the Final was in 1986 when they lost Game 7 of the Campbell Conference Final to Calgary in a game that had been set up by the Monday Night Miracle (look it up on YouTube, you'll be glad you did).

Finally the Boys had made it back to the Championship Round but there was still work to be done and a worthy opponent in the Boston Bruins. Yes it was the same Bruins team that swept the Blues out of the Final in 1970, clinching the Cup on Bobby Orr's goal while flying through the air which was replayed incessantly by the NBC and NBC Sports Network crews during the Final.

This was a key moment in the franchise history of the Blues. Not only had the Blues come away empty in their three previous trips to the big stage but all three times they were swept....twice by the Montreal Canadiens in addition to their 1970 series with Boston. In Game 1, it was more of the same as the Bruins rallied from a 2-0 deficit for a 4-2 victory. Game 2 started shaky for St. Louis but the Blues kept the Bruins in a 2-2 tie as the game headed for overtime.

Then, a significant milestone happened as veteran Carl Gunnarsson scored four minutes into the extra period to give St. Louis a 3-2 win and their first ever victory in a Stanley Cup Final game while knotting the series at one game apiece. It was just one win but it was such a significant breakthrough for this franchise and its tortured fan base. After that I thought anything was possible and there was no stopping the Blues.

Still, reality set in for Game 3, the first Stanley Cup Final game in St. Louis since May 5, 1970 and first ever at Enterprise Center as the Bruins lit up Binnington and Jake Allen on their way to a 7-2 rout. Game 4 was pivotal and the Blues needed a win to have any chance of hoisting Lord Stanley's Cup and Ryan O'Reilly and Vladimir Tarasenko came through to lift them to a 4-2 victory sending the series back to Beantown tied at two apiece. Game 5 was even more pivotal especially when a controversial no-call that went the Blues way led to a goal that proved to be the difference in a 2-1 victory giving St. Louis its first ever lead in the Final.

Now the Blues had the opportunity to end 52 years of waiting at home with a win in Game 6. I was nervous but excited and the city of St. Louis was stoked, but Boston again showed they weren't going away as they took control in the third period on their way to a 5-1 win to send the series back to their home ice for one winner take all game.

Before Game 7 I told myself that no matter how it turned out, I was proud of what the Blues had accomplished and I wasn't going to let a potential negative outcome affect my mental health. It would have been difficult but I would have survived. Game 7 started and Boston launched an assault on Binnington but he turned aside every shot keeping the game scoreless. Then the Blues scored two goals late in the period and led 2-0 going to intermission. I had to temper my excitement though because St. Louis had blown a two-goal lead after the first period of Game 1 and Boston teams had found strange ways to win in recent years so I wasn't taking anything for granted.

The second period was scoreless, still 2-0 St. Louis. By this point I wanted the third period to start right away. How was I going to make it through this intermission? I spent most of that time pacing around back and forth as I could not sit still. Then the third period started and the Blues scored two more goals to lead 4-0. While I felt good about things I wasn't letting up with my intensity. I was still beside myself every time Boston got into the Blues end and the people who were watching the game with me at the local sports bar were just laughing at my reactions but I didn't care.

Though Boston got a goal late, the Blues were in control and finally with 30 seconds left in the game I began to celebrate and I just watched as the players swarmed off the bench and hugged each other after the final horn had sounded. 52 years, 51 seasons and for me 39 seasons of waiting had ended. The Stanley Cup belonged to the St. Louis Blues and that fact was confirmed when NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman gave the Cup to captain Alex Peitrangelo and he hoisted it high above his head amid fireworks at TD Garden.

The moment was emotional and surreal for me. For years I had to watch other teams some with former Blues players skate around with the hardest trophy to win in all of sports. It had gotten to the point that I quit watching the presentation because I just couldn't take it especially when Chicago won it three times in a six year period. Now I could watch and enjoy the moment along with all the rest of the Blues fans who had finally been rewarded with seeing their team win a championship.

I watched the entire four and a half hours of parade coverage three days later. I then constantly checked Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for daily updates on where the Cup was on any given day. I learned about all the traditions and how when the Blues players names were inscribed on the Cup, they would remain there for the next 64 years. It was amazing!

In 2003, I attended he NHL Draft in Nashville and I came face to face with the Cup but I did not touch it because I felt I didn't have the right to do so since the Blues hadn't won it. I mumbled under my breath to the trophy that I hoped one day it would find its way

Erik Stone holding a St. Louis Blues hat after the team won their first Stanley Cup on June 12, 2019.

into the hands of a player wearing a blue note on his sweater. 16 years later Lord Stanley finally listened and there's a banner hanging from the rafters of Enterprise Center to prove it.

If I ever get the opportunity to see the Cup in person again, you bet I'm gonna touch it. The Blues earned me that right just like they earned themselves forever the moniker of "2019 Stanley Cup Champions!"