Spirit lingers long after Cup
By JOHN ROMANO
Published June 7, 2005
Technically, the anniversary is still a few hours away. I suppose the sun has to go down for the stars to align.
Just so you know, just in case you may have forgotten during the year that has followed, it was 10:51 p.m. when forever arrived.
It was announced, officially, by an arena's horn and greeted, unconditionally, by a community's embrace. At that moment the Lightning was given a Stanley Cup, and Tampa Bay was blessed with a sweaty masterpiece.
Forever, you ask?
No, not the length of the wait.
Just the lifespan of the memories.
Truth is, there may never be anything quite like it again. At least not around here. At least not in our lifetimes. That's worth remembering today. Championships are rare enough but this one literally was a Bolt from nowhere.
Don't you recall how unlikely it was? Don't you remember how foreign it seemed? This was not the Buccaneers finally bringing home a Super Bowl after five years of circling and salivating around the cursed thing.
This was as unexpected as it was exhilarating. This was a team with a payroll smaller than most. A team with less talent than several. A team two years removed from awful, and barely acquainted with respectable.
The Lightning was shut down by the Islanders in Game 2, knocked around by the Flyers in Game 4 and left for dead by the Flames in Game 5. Tampa Bay faced elimination on three occasions, and never showed a moment of doubt.
"It was such a magical year," Lightning coach John Tortorella said Monday. "I get tingles just thinking about it again."
Go ahead, say it is overblown. Dismiss it as a revisionist's version of hyperbole. After all, aren't we talking about grown men playing a silly game? And hasn't the cancellation of a season diminished the game's allure?
Maybe. But do me a favor. Try to recall the way this day felt. Try to recapture the anticipation that final game generated.
There were thousands of people who showed up at the St. Pete Times Forum without any illusion of getting a ticket for Game 7. They just wanted to be in the vicinity with a chance of history being made.
Do you remember Cory Sarich taking a stick to the face early in the playoffs? Do you remember Ruslan Fedotenko's head being driven into the boards?
Can you picture Vinny Lecavalier sending one game into overtime with a backward shot between his legs in the final seconds, and losing another overtime game with a careless turnover in the neutral zone?
Tell me, can you recall the smile that was 20 years in the making when Dave Andreychuk raised the Stanley Cup above his head?
"You know, as you get closer to the end, you get so focused on the day, the period, the shift, you don't have time to think about actually winning the Cup," Tortorella said. "I never thought about it until the last 35 seconds.
"And for those 35 seconds, I wasn't even watching the play. I kept looking at the clock. That's what I'll always remember. Those last seconds, and watching our players after it was done. This organization had the (crap) kicked out of us for years. So it was such a joy to see everyone celebrate."
Success has a way of blurring the line between truth and fiction. It makes it easier to embellish the good and romanticize the bad.
Even so, there was something magical about this team.
Martin St. Louis was considered an overachiever, Lecavalier had been called an underachiever, and Brad Richards was too often lost in the shuffle. Nikolai Khabibulin was a head case and Tortorella was the classic hard case.
Andreychuk morphed from a one-dimensional scorer to a skating Yoda. Fedotenko was Jay Feaster's grand gamble, and Darryl Sydor was the GM's final touch. The roster was supposed to be way short on muscle, far too dependent on speed and a playoff run shy of battle-tested.
Yet the Lightning never stopped winning.
This team was the antidote to greed. The answer to selfishness. One of those rare groups that realized its advantage was its unity.
Opponents kept trying to bully these guys. Montreal tried it. Philadelphia did, too. Calgary darn near succeeded. There were moments when Lightning players would forget themselves and get caught up in the fight. Times when they would abandon their game plan and get lost in a game of grab-and-tussle.
But, eventually, they realized they had a different strength. A resiliency in spirit. They kept pressing until the other team broke.
When it was over, when the Cup had been won and the players were celebrating on the ice, Calgary coach Darryl Sutter grasped Tortorella's hand and leaned over to whisper in his ear.
"You wore us out," Sutter told him.
A year has passed, and the camaraderie has surely faded. The labor war has wiped out a season, and you wonder if the Lightning could possibly be the same. Whether the chemistry of that locker room can ever be replicated.
A year has passed, and the euphoria is long gone. We have moved on with our lives and have discovered other avenues for our money and devotion.
A year has passed, and only the memories remain.
Be grateful, they do remain.