Seeing Stars

 

The Tampa Bay Lightning fulfilled their purpose and eliminated the Islanders in six games to win the eastern conference final. YES!!!! Despite my earlier intention to support them through the Stanley Cup final, however, I have changed my mind. It seems I’ve adopted the Dallas Stars as my championship team for the COVID-19 Cup.

But, Ru, what the ... ?

You may well ask. I didn’t mean to cheer for Dallas, but I accidentally watched the last couple of games in their series against the dishonourable Knights. Ter gets the blame for that – she’s the one who flipped the channel to prove if there’s a game on, we’ll watch it. The captain of the Stars (Jamie Benn) grew up in Brentwood Bay, the same community where Ter and I lived as teenagers before we met. It’s a small thing, but enough to pick a team for the duration of a game. That, and I was still mad at Vegas for the second empty net goal against Vancouver.

At the end of game five, Ter announced her support for Dallas to win the Cup. Not only could she not raise any enthusiasm for Tampa, she liked the idea of backing “Brentwood” Benn. I kind of agreed, but I’ve disliked Dallas in the past and, compared to my general indifference to the Lightning, that weighs more.

I waffled some when game six (the elimination game for Vegas) ended with the Stars’ overtime victory. It happened on the dumbest penalty call ever invented by the NHL: the infamous “delay of game”. By accident or design, when a player sends the puck goes over the glass in the defensive zone, it’s an automatic two-minute minor. I have no problem calling it when by design, but the puck glancing off the shaft of a stick engaged in a battle for said puck, I don’t see that being deliberate. Honestly, they delay the game by calling delay of game when they could treat it like icing or offside calls: just get another puck and have a faceoff. Anyway, it’s what happened to the Knights. Dallas scored on the power play and that was it: series over. On a dumb delay of game call that was clearly an accident. I was outraged at the injustice.

Then I remembered the snotty second empty net goal against Vancouver. Suddenly the hockey gods were repaying karma and I was good with the Dallas win. I was also a toe closer to going the distance with them, but not there yet.

At the start of Game One of the final round, Cardigan asked me which team I was hoping would win. I replied that I wouldn’t know until the first goal was scored. If I cheered, that was my team. If I swore, it wasn’t.

Dallas scored first. I cheered. Decision made.

Go, Stars.