What the Redwings' Win Means to Me

I don't exactly follow sports. Here's what I know about competitive, professionals athletics:

* many players receive exorbitant salaries
* men who play soccer have the best bodies, on average
* followed by cyclists
* women athletes don't get enough credit or coverage (until they screw up, Marion Jones)
* watching competitive sports on TV when you don't care deeply about the team or the sport in question is about riveting as watching mediocre amateur theater when you don't know anyone in the cast

But here's the thing: The Detroit Redwings won the Stanley Cup on Wednesday night in Detroit Pittsburgh!*

For those of you who would like that in English: the Detroit hockey team just won this year's hockey version of the Superbowl.

But here's why this is much cooler than winning the Superbowl: the trophy.

Oh, yeah, sure, Superbowl trophies are all big and gleaming and shiny. And they come with Superbowl Rings for all the players. Yadda yadda yadda.

But the Stanley Cup? There is only ONE Stanley Cup. There's not a new cup every year for the winning team (or team owner) to take home and display. Nope. For 115 (yes, that's one hundred fifteen) years, the team that wins the Stanley Cup gets to take home THE Stanley Cup. And not only that, but there's a tradition that every single member of the team gets to take home the Stanley Cup for one day in that winning year. And "every member" means not only the players, but the coaches, and the owners, and the locker room cleaner-upper guys who travel with the team. Everyone. Because, as some guy on the radio (I think he was the team captain, who gets to take home the trophy on the very first day, but I missed the beginning of the interview, so I'm not sure), anyway, as the guy said, "They are all members of the team. We couldn't win without all of them."

How cool is that? Not only do they get to take it home for a day, priceless artifact that it is, but they get to take it wherever they want in that day. Like, say, to a bar. Or fishing. Or on a jet plane to an Asian country where the next exhibition game is going to be held. Or tent camping. Or to the hardware store, if they feel like it. Yeah. That's what I'd do. I'd be all, "hmmm... I think I need some geraniums; see you later honey, the Stanley Cup and I are going to Home Depot."

And even though the thing is priceless and filled with tremendous heritage, they're blase about what this hauling around of the trophy hither and yon will produce. So, as radio guy said (I'm kind of paraphrasing here), "sure, it will get some dings and scratches where somebody bangs it into their kitchen door or whatever," but, he implied, that's just a part of its charm. He did, literally, mention the banging into a kitchen door. Which is an image I love. Because the Stanley Cup is about four feet tall, so that would be a pretty easy mistake to make. (See the picture over there, which gives you some sense of what kind of undertaking it would be to trot this thing around on your errands to the Post Office, and Target, and picking up the kids at daycare. But you totally would, wouldn't you? If it were your day to have that trophy? Wouldn't you run every single errand you could think of, just to be out in public as much as possible, all nonchalant, with THAT tucked under your left arm?)

In the world of high stakes, multi-gazillion dollar professional sports, I can't think of any symbol that gets even remotely close to the Stanley Cup for representing the true reasons to play sports: not for the shiny trophies, not for the bigger-newer-every-year glamor, but for the love of the game, the reverence for its history and its legendary players, and the sense that the dings and scratches, the imperfections of real experience and real living -- that's what make things in life truly valuable.


*Many thanks to the ever-patient LatteMommy, whose correction of the location of the winning game six clearly proves how little I follow sports.

***My apologies to anyone who came here for a Green Up Your Thumb Friday. I'll resume that next week. Unless some other fabulously newsworthy tidbit strikes my fancy and distracts me again.***