As someone who grew up in Buffalo, I know all too well the feelings that flowed through the veins of the fans gathered inside Vancouver’s Rogers Arena Wednesday night, as those fans watched the Boston Bruins raise Lord Stanley’s Cup on their home ice.
I grew up with those feelings.
After losing a second Game 7 of a Stanley Cup Finals, the Canucks, and the city of Vancouver, can officially join Buffalo and Cleveland in a miserable place for fandom: sports purgatory.
For a fan, there is nothing worse than coming close to a championship, only to fall short. Growing up when the Buffalo Bills were repeatedly reaching the Super Bowl – only to suffer one agonizing loss after another once they made it there – I learned the hard way how rough sports purgatory can be. I famously predicted to my grandfather at halftime of the 1993 wild-card playoff game between the Bills and Oilers, when the Bills were trailing 28-3, that they would come back and win the game.
That’s because it was unfathomable to me that the Bills wouldn’t make it to the Super Bowl. But once they got there? As much as I wished for something else to happen, I knew in the pit of my stomach what was destined to happen.
Fans from towns like Buffalo and Cleveland know what I’m talking about. Plays like “No Goal,” when the Dallas Stars scored a clearly illegal goal to win Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals on Buffalo’s home ice, and the NHL didn’t have the guts to reverse the call, happen.
Moments like “The Drive” happen, when John Elway drove the Denver Broncos the length of the field to tie the Browns at the end regulation the 1987 AFC Championship Game, a game the Broncos, of course, went on to win. Or “The Fumble” happens, when Earnest Byner fumbled on his way to score a touchdown the following year to give the Broncos another win over the Browns.
Or, most painfully for me, “Wide Right” happens, when Scott Norwood missed a game-winning 47-yard field goal as time expired, giving the New York Giants Super Bowl XXV.
Watching on television, you could feel the misery and hear the groans coming from the depths of every Canucks fan standing inside Rogers Arena last night once Boston forward Patrice Bergeron scored late in the first period, knowing that this was the moment they had been dreading ever since the Bruins forced a Game 7.
Once Brad Marchand put the Bruins up 2-0 midway through the second period, you were almost sure the Canucks had no chance. And then, a few minutes later, you were 100 percent sure after Bergeron scored his second goal of the game – shorthanded, no less – and that was that.
It was a sobering thing to watch, having personally lived through it. Somebody who grew up a fan of the Yankees, or the Lakers or Celtics, or the Steelers or Cowboys can’t really understand what it’s like. Sure, those cities have had other teams suffer through depressing losses, but there’s nothing like an entire city knowing that all of its teams are cursed, have the chips stacked against them before they even begin the game.
It’s a unifying force, as well as a depressing one. It’s also one I’d never wish on another sports fan. That’s why I couldn’t help but feel for Canucks fans, why I couldn’t help but pull for Vancouver to win the Cup this year, and finally give those fans the release they’ve been waiting decades to enjoy.
Instead it’s back to the drawing board, back to another brutally long summer. Then, once next season rolls around, they’ll pack Rogers Arena again and begin to get their hopes up, just like the fans in Buffalo and Cleveland do year after year.
Only, in the end, those fans all know the way it’s going to end. But that doesn’t keep them from holding out hope that one day, maybe, possibly, they’ll be wrong. And what a glorious day that will be.
