Sometimes sports are just sports, but sometimes they are so much more, offering glimpses into the essence of human achievement and suffering, forcing even the burliest of sports fans to look deep into their own souls.
This year’s Stanley Cup Final, which got underway Monday in Las Vegas, is one of those events. The competition presents questions which cut to our very core, questions we may never answer satisfactorily. But we must try to get to the bottom of this year’s Stanley Cup race and find out what it means for us as a sports-loving species. Here’s what we need to learn.
Question 1: What the hell is going on here?
The Stanley Cup Final began in … Las Vegas? Featuring a team that didn’t even exist a year ago? And these “Golden Knights” won Game 1? And they’re playing against the Washington Capitals? A team whose soul didn’t even exist a year ago?
Sorry for answering a question with five more questions, but this is one of the most baffling championship matchups in the history of sports. An expansion team against an Ovechkin team, two entities which before this season were the most inert things since argon, xenon, and radon.
One of these teams is going to win the Stanley Cup in two weeks or less, assuming that hell doesn’t freeze over by then. Before Game 1 the betting odds were at: Vegas -160 (favourites); Washington +140 (underdogs); Temperature in Hell -12 (Celsius).
Question 2: Seriously, can you name three players on the Las Vegas Golden Knights?
Marc-Andre Fleury! That’s one. And James Neal is there too, right? And Karlson? No, not that Karlson. Karlsson maybe? Or Karlsssson? And, um ... Mike Peca? Hakan Loob? Wayne Newton?
That’s the roster, quite possibly your 2018 Stanley Cup champions.
Question 3: Why do we do this to ourselves?
This is the question that all the fans of the many title-less, tough luck or downright terrible teams are asking themselves right now. The Vancouver Canucks. The Buffalo Bills. The Toronto Maple Leafs. The Cleveland Browns. The Vancouver Canucks. The Toronto Maple Leafs. The Detroit Lions. The Vancouver Canucks. There are 50-year-old fans for all of those teams who have devoted their entire lives to their beloved franchises without ever tasting a championship.
Now here comes an expansion team – an ice hockey team in the middle of a desert, no less – that is three wins away from a championship. It’s like a love-struck romantic who has been pining for the same girl since they met in Grade 1 who, at age 50, has to watch her get married ... to an adorable puppy.
Sure they’re cute and loveable, but puppies are not supposed to win the Stanley Freaking Cup!
It’s gotta sting for all those tortured fans, watching these Vegas ragamuffins skate their way into the finals, tapping their sticks each day on the beloved team motto inscribed on their dressing room door: ‘What, like it’s hard?’
Question 4: How is Las Vegas doing this?
There are age-old truisms that any sports radio talking head can pontificate on for hours on end, pausing only briefly to do a quick on-air read for Budget Brake & Muffler.
Chemistry matters. Continuity matters. Defence wins championships. Superstars win championships. Your best players have to be your best players in the playoffs. Get your brakes checked and tires rotated every six months.
To these truisms the Golden Knights say, FakeNews!
Chemistry? They haven’t even learned all of each other’s names yet.
Best players? Does Vegas have good players?
Defence? Nothing spectacular there behind the top pairing of Siegfried and Roy.
The only one truism the Golden Knights nail is the old ‘Ride a hot goaltender to the Cup’ theory. Also, their mufflers are pristine.
Question 5: And the Washington Capitals are involved?
That’s right, the team that we’re relying on to maintain some semblance of order in the sports universe just happens to be the chokingest hockey team of recent memory. The Caps somehow made their way to the finals for the second time in franchise history, looking for their first ever Cup after years of heartbreak and near misses. The Caps winning would be almost as incredible as the Golden Knights winning.
But this almost seems like destiny – losing a Stanley Cup Final against an expansion team would no doubt be the Capsiest way to lose a Stanley Cup Final.
No matter what happens, the sports world will never be quite the same after this year’s final. If the expansion Golden Knights somehow win it all though, there may be some fed up sports fans swearing off their teams forever.
Or maybe we should just forget this ever happened, like that time we went to a Celine Dion show on the Las Vegas strip and 10 hours later ended up sleeping in a dumpster with a boa constrictor, the cast of Cheers, and a biker named Harley Zalapski.
What if we just pretended that none of this ever happened? You know what they say: what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.
Andy Prest is the sports editor for the North Shore News and writes a biweekly humour/lifestyle column. He can be reached via email at aprest@nsnews.com.
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