Nice watch!
I totally whiffed on my chance to do a nice post about the 10th Anniversary of the Dallas Stars’ Stanley Cup win! I missed the date, but I have really been enjoying the video and photo galleries and stories that the Stars have had up on their official site.
They have been posting highlights and post-games shows and photo galleries and links to newspaper articles for each game that the Stars won on their way to the Championship. It’s really been fascinating.
The latest batch of videos and pictures is especially fun. They have video from the locker-room from the CBC, and an especially cool bit of footage from the charter flight that night. Most of it doesn’t have sound (unless it’s just me), which makes me think they just decided to bleep that whole section.
I was a big Stars fan back then. I watched the entire playoffs. I stayed up all night that night watching three different local news channels trying to catch as much locker-room celebration as I could. The thing is, my memory of a lot of it is sketchy.
I remember Brett Hull sitting on top of the lockers with a big cigar, just grinning like mad. I remember Modano in tears most of the time. I remember everybody drinking from the Cup. I remember that I was grinning like mad the whole time.
I don’t remember the names of all the players, though. Some of them I don’t recognize watching them climb the stairs onto the plane. It’s not that it was so long ago, although it was. It’s mostly that I had no idea what was going on.
I didn’t realize it at the time, though. I thought I was a hockey expert! I could ramble on about penalty killing or offsides or icing and nobody I knew could correct me. They had no idea what I was talking about.
A lot of people got into that Cup run, me included. I had watched quite a bit the season before, but I didn’t schedule around games or anything. But that season I watched almost every game. And I watched every playoff game (I think). I wasn’t the only one. The entire city of Dallas was on the bandwagon with me. Hockey was on TV in the bars, even!
After we went to the Finals the next season and then started to fall back into the crowd over the next several seasons, the bandwagon lost a lot of its riders. But for some reason, I decided to stay. I never went back to my hockey-less life. Why is that?
The Dallas Stars charmed me that year with one hand behind their back. I hardly knew more than a few players. I knew when Nieuwendyk was on the ice. And Modano and Hatcher and Langenbrunner and Hull. And I knew Eddie Belfour was the guy they’d sunk all their hopes into. But that was about it.
Yet, I was hooked. I couldn’t let go. Even when Nieuwendyk and Langenbrunner were traded. Even when they missed the playoffs in 2002. Even during a whole year with no hockey!
I have often wanted to move on. Find something less heartbreaking to sink all my emotions into. Baseball entertained me a little. I tried to watch basketball during the lockout, but there were too many shots of Mark Cuban acting like an idiot. I couldn’t stick with it. I’m stuck with hockey.
Fortunately, hockey is the absolute best thing to be stuck with.
Go Stars!
Oh, I do love that picture. Great post too.
Thanks, teri! Isn’t he adorable?
You know, the whole time I watched the Pens with the Cup, I kept thinking if I were there, I’d just want to hug it the whole time, instead of carrying it over my head.
Oh my gosh. I cannot believe how adorable Zubie was.
He still is, Myra! His dimples never left. :P
His dimples are still quite adorable. The rest of him is a little scary these days. :)
He’s not the least bit scary! Unless you’re trying to stop him from sending a breakout pass. :D
Patty, I nearly had a heart attack when I opened up your page.
But that’s okay, because that picture is ADORABLE.
I just remember staying up late to watch the last game in ‘99 and seeing how happy they were after Hull scored the goal. So cool. :)
I wish Dallas had won the cup this year instead of the Penguins. Sidney Crosby doesn’t need anymore attention than he’s already gotten in his short career.
Didn’t mean to scare you, Caitlin! :P
I wish Dallas had won the cup this year instead of the Penguins.
Me, too, ourboy. But since it couldn’t be the Stars, I was thrilled that Sid and Bouche and the Pens got it instead.
This is one of the very first cup finals I watched, and I remember that I was rooting for the Sabres in that series (that was even before I choosed Montreal as my team). But this plane video is really nice. It was fun to watch Carbo and Gainey in that team. (and the sound was not working for me either)
It was fun to watch Carbo and Gainey in that team.
They couldn’t have done it without those two!