I have three distinctive memories of the last Cup era.
The first is walking out of Boston Garden with my Dad after the Bruins beat the Blackhawks in the semi-finals. "Bring on the Blues" some old timer yelled, and everyone starting chanting along with him.
The second was being in the car as the family drove down to New York for some event with the radio on. Some nobody named Ken Dryden stood on his head, knocked the Bs out of the playoffs and put us all in sad shock.
The third was the joy I felt seeing the Bs beat the Rangers for their second Cup in three years.
That was, of course, the Bobby Orr era, and I've never loved an athlete in any sport like I loved him. Seeing that guy rag the puck and kill penalties by himself viturally...I've never seen anyone even try that. I've never had the choice of uniform numbers in any sport when I didn't choose number 4.
I have one distinctive memory of the 1990 Stanley Cup Finals. I went to game one -- the 3OT/"screw you Klima and Wesley" game -- with my brother. The same brother who I went to game 3 of these finals with last Monday.
Which brings us to this current Cup era. My youngest son, an 11-year old, is completely infatuated with the Bs. He's been a Michael Ryder guy all season. He just loves Ryder and wears his Ryder jersey constantly. He's also a manic Boston sports fan living in the NY area, which means he takes a lot of shit when things go wrong. Someone joked in the "Win it for" thread about kids who haven't really experienced Boston titles and he's actually one of them. What I mean is that he was just barely old enough to appreciate sports when the Cs won it all in 2008. Now it's totally different in that he fully understands what's going on, is able to make insightful comments, reads the sports section as his first act of every day and truly lives and dies with our four Boston teams.
So I'm watching the game tonight with him. I thought briefly about going to one of the Boston themed bars in Manhattan with the client I took to Game 6 of this very series but, in the end, it's a very easy "Father/Son" decision to watch it with him. An absolute no-brainer, really.
Maybe one day he'll write about his first Cup and having seen it with the guy who never stopped talking about Bobby Orr.
Last, as much as I want this title, and feel substantially more invested than I ever imagined I would be at age 48 in such a thing, I realize that a lot of the reason for that is tied to him. I want him to have it as a Boston sports fan living where he does; I want it because it will be his first championship with true sports fan awareness; and I want, most of all, to share a title with him.