Pictured Above: As the Tampa Bay Lightning stormed the ice in celebration of their Stanley Cup win, I, a grown adult, began uncontrollably crying.
Courtesy of Helena Dominick
By Patrick Tobin
I was 5 years old on June 7, 2004, the day the Tampa Bay Lightning won the Stanley Cup for the first time.
I had been at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa all day, undergoing tests for a heart condition I was diagnosed with the previous year. I fell asleep in the car on the way home from the hospital and almost slept through puck drop.
It’s unclear how much of the actual game I remember from watching that day, and how much I remember from watching a replay of it at least once a week for the next few months. Regardless, no Tampa Bay sports fan can forget the last few minutes of that game.
The Lightning up 2-1, Marty St. Louis bleeding from the bridge of his nose. Four-on-four play with Captain Dave Andreychuk in the penalty box. Nikolai Khabibulin, better known at the time as “The Bulin Wall,” coming out of the paint to knock a rebound away from a Calgary player’s stick with just three seconds left. And finally, Dave Mishkin’s iconic “It’s over, it’s over, it’s over…the Lightning have won the Stanley Cup!”
These are just some of the memories that hit me on September 28, 2020, the day the Tampa Bay Lightning won the Stanley Cup for the second time.
Yes, I cried.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a column about my superstitions during the Stanley Cup Playoffs. At the time, the Lightning were still in the Eastern Conference Finals, the series that knocked them out of the playoffs twice in their previous three playoff runs. I was not very hopeful.
But now, I can confidently say I’ve perfected my regimen of superstitions, and I believe without a doubt that I am the reason the Lightning won the Stanley Cup. NHL, take this as my formal petition to put my name on the cup.
Hear me out.
Most importantly, I expected the worst. It helped that in Game 1 of the Finals, the Lightning looked like they would get swept by the Dallas Stars. But in Game 2 I had nothing to lose, so I put on a Lightning T-shirt. It seemed to work, they tied up the series.
In Game 3 I risked it all and put on my jersey. And not just any jersey, a 2004 Nikolai Khabibulin jersey with a Stanley Cup Finals patch on it. Risky, yes, but Steven Stamkos returned with a goal on his first shot in his first playoff appearance this season. They beat the Stars 5-2 and went up 2-1 in the series. I was on to something.
Game 4 is when I cracked the code. Jersey on, watching in my apartment and FaceTiming a friend. What ensued was one of the best hockey games I have ever watched. It was a constant battle with both teams coming from behind and scoring at key points. Luckily, the Lighting scraped by with a 5-4 win in overtime after a controversial penalty led to a power-play goal. (No, it wasn’t tripping, but it was most definitely a penalty. Fight me, Texas).
Then came Game 5. Excited by the prospect of being one game away from victory I watched with my parents. The jersey was still on, but I had messed with the universe too much. Dallas won 3-2 and forced a Game 6. I’m sorry Jon Cooper, I let you down.
Game 6 it was back to the apartment, jersey on, friend FaceTimed. A shutout by Andrei Vasilevskiy and goals by Brayden Point and Blake Coleman led the Lightning to their second Stanley Cup in franchise history.
Years of stress and tears (sad tears) and trashed playoff brackets finally gave way to relief. This win is not just a satisfying end to a season that the Lightning managed to turn around. It’s not just redemption for last season’s embarrassing first-round exit. This is the past five seasons of hard work and disappointing endings since the Lightning’s loss to the Chicago Blackhawks in 2015 finally paying off.
This time there were no cheering fans or Thundersticks, but that didn’t stop me from crying like I was 5 years old again.
