ALL THE WAY INTO THAT EMPTY NET
the penguins shoot; we score.
A TWM fan, friend, and regular correspondent sent a
little dispatch that I would say got my week off to a good start, if it had not
also done such a fine job of finishing off my weekend:
I was visiting my oldest son and granddaughter and watched that second goal roll like a beer can in a Kansas crosswind all the way into that empty net and it was all I could do to keep from tossing a five-month old into the air like a graduation cap.
I know the feeling. And I imagine all of Penguin Fandom does too.
My seats are down at that end of the rink, just along the goal line, and as I watched Adam Hall's sweet clear bounce off those boards and roll oh-so-achingly slowly down the ice, I wanted to launch myself over the glass, lie down behind it, and blow. When that puck finally hit the back of the net, after almost sixty minutes of play and nearly 150 of whipsawing tension, I wanted to laugh and cry and sing all at once. I was so full of joy that, for a moment at least, I think I may have levitated.
Friday night, when Sid one-timed that sweet Ryan Whitney pass off Geno's shin pads and into the net to win Game 1, an exuberant Ethan leapt into my arms, I lifted him into the air, and at least some small part of me wanted to toss him, hat-trick-like, down on to the ice, so he could join in the celebration himself.
These are exciting times to be a hockey fan in Pittsburgh. And this is an exciting team of fine young players and, by all accounts, even finer young men who deserve every last ounce of this city's abundant, if occasionally misdirected, sporting passion.
In our house, with all due respect to the football teams at both ends of the commonwealth, hockey is what baseball used to be to America: an all-consuming passion, a unifying, electrifying pastime around which, from October through April, and especially come playoff time, everything else must fit, revolve, or fade away. (Our neighbors three houses over told us last night that they could follow the progress of yesterday's game by listening for Wendy's and Adam's and Ethan's reactions to echo through the yards and down the street.) Penguins hockey is part sport, part religion; it's shared values and family tradition. And this year, so far, feels like we're making memories to last our lifetimes.
Some of you understand this. Many of you do not. But I imagine that, without too much trouble, most of you who do not can at least imagine it, or maybe substitute something from your own lives and loves -- yesterday or today, now or forever -- that brought you, your family, and a great, rising swell of your community together.
The next time some humorless, utilitarian economist (yes, I know that's redundant) wants to whine about the opportunity costs and negative externalities of using a little casino money to pay for a new multi-purpose arena that also helps keep this hockey team -- and along with it, these marvelous emotions -- in town, or the next time some self-obsessed, self-important community activist (yes, I know that too) who loves jazz or theater or football wants to know what's in this for her, I'd like to invite them both to our seats at the arena, or to our sofa at home, or to that house with my emailer, his son, and his almost-cap-tossed granddaughter, or to any of the tens of thousands of other homes in this region just like it, during a Penguins playoff game. And I'd like them, if only for a moment, to calculate the sustainable growth, or perhaps the community benefit, of living and sharing and carrying those moments within you, of waking up with an extra bounce in your step and a rally towel still fluttering in your chest, knowing that everything you do, every last bit of work or stress you face between now and Tuesday night at 7:00, will come a little easier, will carry a hop and a smile and a little extra energy because those kids just keep on working and winning and making you feel, even on this most gray and rainy of Mondays, that you, your family, and your wonderful little corner of the world have one more thing to look forward to, and to be thankful for, together.
I was visiting my oldest son and granddaughter and watched that second goal roll like a beer can in a Kansas crosswind all the way into that empty net and it was all I could do to keep from tossing a five-month old into the air like a graduation cap.
I know the feeling. And I imagine all of Penguin Fandom does too.
My seats are down at that end of the rink, just along the goal line, and as I watched Adam Hall's sweet clear bounce off those boards and roll oh-so-achingly slowly down the ice, I wanted to launch myself over the glass, lie down behind it, and blow. When that puck finally hit the back of the net, after almost sixty minutes of play and nearly 150 of whipsawing tension, I wanted to laugh and cry and sing all at once. I was so full of joy that, for a moment at least, I think I may have levitated.
Friday night, when Sid one-timed that sweet Ryan Whitney pass off Geno's shin pads and into the net to win Game 1, an exuberant Ethan leapt into my arms, I lifted him into the air, and at least some small part of me wanted to toss him, hat-trick-like, down on to the ice, so he could join in the celebration himself.
These are exciting times to be a hockey fan in Pittsburgh. And this is an exciting team of fine young players and, by all accounts, even finer young men who deserve every last ounce of this city's abundant, if occasionally misdirected, sporting passion.
In our house, with all due respect to the football teams at both ends of the commonwealth, hockey is what baseball used to be to America: an all-consuming passion, a unifying, electrifying pastime around which, from October through April, and especially come playoff time, everything else must fit, revolve, or fade away. (Our neighbors three houses over told us last night that they could follow the progress of yesterday's game by listening for Wendy's and Adam's and Ethan's reactions to echo through the yards and down the street.) Penguins hockey is part sport, part religion; it's shared values and family tradition. And this year, so far, feels like we're making memories to last our lifetimes.
Some of you understand this. Many of you do not. But I imagine that, without too much trouble, most of you who do not can at least imagine it, or maybe substitute something from your own lives and loves -- yesterday or today, now or forever -- that brought you, your family, and a great, rising swell of your community together.
The next time some humorless, utilitarian economist (yes, I know that's redundant) wants to whine about the opportunity costs and negative externalities of using a little casino money to pay for a new multi-purpose arena that also helps keep this hockey team -- and along with it, these marvelous emotions -- in town, or the next time some self-obsessed, self-important community activist (yes, I know that too) who loves jazz or theater or football wants to know what's in this for her, I'd like to invite them both to our seats at the arena, or to our sofa at home, or to that house with my emailer, his son, and his almost-cap-tossed granddaughter, or to any of the tens of thousands of other homes in this region just like it, during a Penguins playoff game. And I'd like them, if only for a moment, to calculate the sustainable growth, or perhaps the community benefit, of living and sharing and carrying those moments within you, of waking up with an extra bounce in your step and a rally towel still fluttering in your chest, knowing that everything you do, every last bit of work or stress you face between now and Tuesday night at 7:00, will come a little easier, will carry a hop and a smile and a little extra energy because those kids just keep on working and winning and making you feel, even on this most gray and rainy of Mondays, that you, your family, and your wonderful little corner of the world have one more thing to look forward to, and to be thankful for, together.
Posted: Mon - April 28, 2008 at 10:21 AM
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Published On: Apr 28, 2008 10:21 AM
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Published On: Apr 28, 2008 10:21 AM