You’ll hear it tonight. The announcers, interviews, or a pre game video. This is what they dreamed about. When you we’re shooting pucks on the net in the driveway. It was always game 7, for the Stanley Cup. But when they were kids, they didn’t know what that meant.
The 40 men playing for the cup tonight, they know what it means. Each man knows what he and everyone in that room before the game has endured to get here. Pre-season workouts. Bag skates. Practices. Weight rooms. More ice baths than you can count. A grueling regular season followed by the toughest playoff in sports.
Bumps and bruises don’t even begin to describe it. They play through agony. Every other night for 2 months. You hear stories about what guys have played through. You hear the list of injuries, but we can’t understand it. You never notice it during games. Maybe a grimace here and a wince there, but it’s lurking in the background, causing pain that you can’t even imagine.
Why? Because it’s the cup. A silver trophy that’s worth more than the 35 pounds it weighs or shine that it brings to the ice. It’s worth all the work that went into getting your hands on it. The sport you’ve played your whole life. Every practice your parents drove you to. Every game you woke up and drove hours in the snow to. That’s what it’s worth. The trashcan that you and you buddies used to hoist over you heads after scoring the goal to win the Stanley Cup is why you did all those things. That dream on the driveway, becomes a dream that lasts forever. You would think that the playoffs would turn boys into men. But tonight, one trophy will turn men into boys. Shooting pucks in the driveway, in game 7, for the Stanley Cup.
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