So They Played for THIS?

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Yesterday there was a big game in hockey, and the winner got a Stanley cup. Actually, yesterday was loaded with championship sports events, two of them being in hockey. The American Hockey League (AHL) had its season end when the Hershey Bears won their second consecutive Calder Cup. They’re from Hershey, Pennsylvania, not sponsored by the Hershey chocolate bar, by the way. Also finishing up yesterday was the College World Series, which is played annually in Omaha, Nebraska. The University of Tennessee Volunteers had to hang on for a 6-5 victory in the third and deciding game of the series. Congratulations to the folks on “Rocky Top”! Then there was Lord Stanley’s Cup (not that cheap thing pictured), the greatest of the awards. Why? Because every team who’s ever won it has every player and coach’s name inscribed on it as part of the privilege of winning it. (When the Cup gets “full,” a ring is “retired” and put in the Hockey Hall of Fame.) Not only that, but hockey has the greatest tradition in sports: after a playoff series ends, the two teams — who, in a lot of cases, had resorted to fisticuffs with each other during the series — line up and shake hands. Listen, I love baseball; however, hockey is the only real sport. Have you ever ice skated? Okay, now do that with a stick and 25 pounds of padding and protective gear on. BACKWARDS. AND fight with someone on skates. Don’t give me these wimpy “dancing” or “hugging” things that baseball players do when the dugouts empty (although, granted, there have been a few real knock-down, drag-outs in baseball history), or shoving that a sumo wrestler would laugh at in football. No, these guys can (and frequently do) draw blood in their on-ice fights…all while standing up while punching and taking punches. So here’s to the team from that state that just screams cold weather and ice skating — the Florida Panthers — who won their first Stanley Cup last night. Here’s my main man, Warren Zevon, with a song about hockey. The “hit somebody” shouts were done by none other than David Letterman.