Believe.


I squeezed into my Ryder jeans today in honour of this guy,  Michael Ryder of Bonavista who'll bring the cup home to Newfoundland!


Enough said!

Don't worry American friends.  The drinking age in Canada is 19(except in Que where it's 18)

The Stanley Cup as high as it has ever been raised by Captain Zdeno Chara!
My Big Bad Bruins are the Stanley Cup Champions!!!!

Tim Thomas;  Never had a bad game..heck he never had a average game!  

Most valuable player in the playoffs...Tim Thomas..this was not a surprise..nobody came close.
T
The Bruins in HOME Jerseys in the winning huddle..similar to my visualisation.  I really should do more of that!!!

I swear I was home and my ass isn't nearly this good though I do have a better tan...





The Boston Bruins have won the Stanley Cup! I've heard some sweet words in my life but these are up there with the sweetest!  I have waited pretty much my entire life for this.  I have dreamt of it.  This year it happened.  And I knew it would happen.  In my heart of hearts I knew this was the year.  Yet I didn't always in every moment believe it.  Perhaps because I thought it was too good to be true.

The season started off like any other for me.  Some good games.  Some hatin' on the Habs and the Flyers.  And then in November there was a game.  And after the game I was wired.  Boston had lost but it was a good night all around anyway.  And a picture flashed across my mind of the Bruins in their home jersey's jumping on top of each other having just won the Stanley Cup.  I remember thinking "wow, they're really gonna win it this year." and then forgetting about it all soon after.

Until the season started to wind down.  And the team was doing great.  They had  been fortunate in the injury department and Tim Thomas was a wonder in net.  And occasionally I'd see a flashback of the same scene...the Bruins celebrating the ultimate victory and I believed it may be so.

But the problem is that when you want to believe something so badly sometimes you think it's your wanting that is creating the knowing.  So you doubt it,  after all isn't it just too good to be true? 

Then came the playoffs!  The Bruins battled.  They had a horrible battle in Montreal losing the first two on home ice.  I was stressed.  But every time after a loss I went to bed and closed my eyes and remembered the picture.  Yes.  I wanted them to win really badly but deep inside I knew they would.  I told a few people about my little vision.  They laughed and scoffed.  I laughed too,  but hey,  visualising happy things isn't bad right?

Then the fun continued.  Longtime nemesis Philly was annihilated!  Then came Tampa Bay,  a good solid team with heart out their ears but still my Bruins battled on.  Losing, winning, leaving me worried, stressed, pissed off with more up and downs than a yo yo!(see nice clean analogy..it could have gone another way easily)

Finally.  The finals.  Against Vancouver.  A Canadian team.  As a Bruins fan I was suddenly no longer Canadian(uh?  But the Bruins have more Canadians on their team and doesn't participation in our election and being an engaged citizen count for anything?) But I let it slide and joined some Boston fan group pages(Bostonians rock!) and moved along...scared to death...excited as hell and still always holding that little flicker of graphic memory that had flashed in my mind 6 months previous.  Premonition?  Visualisation?  Coincidence?  Magic?(perhaps I made it happen uh?  Ok..well I might have helped a tad! Ya ever consider that?) Who the heck knows?  It doesn't matter.

Then it got closer..and it was game six and I realised..wait..they can lose it all tonight but even if they win they're going to Vancouver and my premonition had "home" jerseys.  The whites.  Then I realised..they're playing dark in Boston so Vancouver WOULD be home jerseys...maybe.  If you think hockey players are superstitious they have nothing on me so when I saw them skate on to the ice in white jerseys I knew we had it.  Whew.  What a relief.  I did not stress the game 7.  Particularly since the Bruins dominated from the start.  First goal to last it was the Bruin's game.  I feel  bad for Vancouver and their fans but  holy crap Batman, Spiderman and Superman, the Boston Bruins have won the Stanley Cup!

I cried.  I'm a sap.  I put on my jersey..which I couldn't find at first(wtf?). Yep..bawled like a baby.  I waited a long time for this.  Screamed with friends.  I couldn't even talk(I know right?).  Drank more beer.  Watched highlights.   Cried some more.  Posted on Face Book.  Danced around in my jersey like a fool(slept in it and wore it all day today too) and just savoured the moment(s).

Beer never tasted better and while the behaviour of a few of Vancouver's drunkest and craziest people setting cars on fire and rioting and looting was disheartening,  I have never had a  more fun celebration or a more fun reason to celebrate.  And I'm not too upset with the fans in Vancouver because had the Bruins lost I was planning on burning a car myself.  A PT Cruiser most likely because those damn things are ugly.  Just kidding.  I live in rural Ontario.  I would have just tipped a cow and toilet papered a tractor.  No seriously..you know I wouldn't have touched the cow. 

Now back to the topic.  Which is not actually the Stanley Cup or the Bruins.  It is Believe!

I had a knowing.  I felt it in my core that this was the year.  But I wouldn't believe it.  Many of us don't believe the signs that are all around us.  Little reminders and signs of things that tell me something is up with someone and while most past things like that off as coincidences I'm started to connect that certain flashes of thought or knowing are actually dead-on accurate.  That what we sometimes think of as our dream coming true is actually not a dream at all, just something that was destined to be and we knew it was destined. 

Who the frig knows what it all means and if it means anything at all.  But all the times during these playoffs that I stressed and ranted and was all ticked I could have remained happy and calm had I trusted the intuition I had about the final result.  And if I had been wrong what would it have mattered?  Isn't it better to just be as  happy as you can for as long as you can and face the disappointment when it comes instead of making yourself miserable gearing up for a letdown that never shows up?

I know that Tim Thomas, winner of the most valuable player award (Conn-Smythe) in the playoffs and best goalie winner(Vezina) from a previous year doesn't seem to play that way.  He smiles and laughs and shakes his head at his luck when a puck hits the crossbar.  He shakes off a bad goal and smiles and carries on.  He did not waver in the playoffs and his confidences was unshaken.  Not bad for a man who decided to be the first in his family to go to college, whose parents pawned jewelry to keep  him in hockey,  Who didn't make it into the NHL until he was 34 and who now at 37 has the Stanley Cup and numerous other records and awards that wouldn't have happened if he hadn't worked hard and believed!

This morning I opened the cupboard and saw my Bruins mug.  I welled up with emotion.  I had bought it last season the day after the Bruins had been defeated early in the playoffs as a defiant show of support and as a way to express "next year boys." Every time I had used it this year I had thought "this  is the year" in my mind.  This morning when I said it.  It was true. 

Believe.  Dreams come true.  Small ones and big ones and they create stories.  Some of these stories, even those that never get told to anyone, still have happy endings.  This is the happiest ending to the best story ever.

Thank you to the 2010-2011 Boston Bruins.  And thank you to anyone else who helped make my dreams come true this year.  I will always believe in you.  No matter what.





Be happy and believe..in that order.
Carolyn R Parsons 


Comments

Debbie said…
yay Bruins!!:) great pic of you BTW!:)