Everyone's memory carries a unique timeline, highlighted by their own personal experiences. Each one is linked by individual events, carrying moments of happiness and sorrow, elation and tragedy. My timeline is anchored by the NHL playoffs, and each memory reminds me of a different time and place.
My earliest playoff memories developed as a young boy, watching the dominant Edmonton Oilers teams of the 80s. I remember my parents sending me off to bed sometime during the first period, and they always rejected my clumsy plea to stay up late. Staggering off down the stairs to my bedroom, I would stop and sit at the bottom of the basement steps, trying to hear the noise from the television. After about 10 minutes I'd shout up "What's the score?" and my father would call it out me. After another 10 minutes passed I asked again, and my father responded with the updated score. Waiting another 10 minutes, I asked again, but the answer didn't come immediately. "Okay, come on up," my father said, reluctantly. I sprang up those steps like it was Christmas morning, catching the final period before a trumpet blared the Hockey Night in Canada theme, bringing an end to the night's action.
The next night brought the same thing, and by the end of the week I was allowed to watch the entire game without spending any time on the basement steps. I spent hours next to my dad, asking him about the rules, the different players and teams. I learned about Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier, Paul Coffey and Kevin Lowe, Glen Sather and Grant Fuhr. I was hooked immediately.
Those memories have only grown over the years. I remember going on a camping trip as a boy scout, packing a handheld black-and-white TV along for the trip. CBC was the only channel that came through, and it was the only one I cared about. Sent off to dig a latrine in the deep woods, I stopped and sat on a log next to the Clearwater River, watching the Bruins and Canadiens in one of many playoff battles. After a couple minutes some of my fellow scouts would pass and ask what I was watching. After 15 minutes we had eight kids huddled around the fuzzy 3-inch screen. I never dug the latrine.
The 1993 playoffs offered a personal highlight and captured my imagination like nothing else had. Want proof? Try finding another kid who made a paper mache model of Maple Leaf Gardens. Watching the Kings and Leafs in an epic series, I still remember the anticipation for game seven, pacing back and forth waiting for the game to begin. Gretzky's performance still stands out in my mind, untarnished after 14 years, a superhero at the height of his powers.
The next year provided another round of memories, with the Rangers and Canucks engaged in a series you wished would never end. I remember my seventh grade teach Mrs. Jackson would open each class with a 10-minute discussion about the previous night's game. The classroom buzzed each morning with talk of Kirk McLean and Pavel Bure, Mark Messier and Mike Richter. They weren't your favorite teams but it didn't matter, because you knew you were watching something special. Messier's celebration capped a perfect series, and you longed to be part of it, in a front row seat at MSG.
Dallas and Buffalo offered another highlight in '99. I was attending a banquet on the night of game six, and there must have been 25 to 30 strangers gathered around a small TV in the foyer. Every scoring chance was met with loud groans of disbelief, causing people in the main banquet room to close the doors because our excitement was drowning out the activity. It all came to an end with Hull's left skate, providing the biggest injustice in NHL history. There's still a little Sabre fan in me from that year, and there's no doubt they deserve a Cup.
I still remember exactly where I was for Primeau's goal in 2000, joining an entire roomful of people whose eyes tracked every scoring chance and perilous bounce. The entire place burst into jubilation when that puck crossed the line, witnessing history in action. Nothing else outside tragedy can bring strangers together like playoff overtime, enjoying the wild, unpredictable ride long into the night.
Even when I haven't been able to see the games, living thousands of miles away, the playoffs have still carried memories. I was in Jamaica for the playoffs in 2001. Sitting in an old zinc shack that wasn't much larger than a penalty box, I remember watching a basketball game on ESPN as the ticker ran at the bottom of the screen, providing updates on game six between Edmonton and Dallas. Dallas pulled out a 3-1 victory and I walked outside, enveloped by the smell of mango and a warm, tropical breeze, feeling a connection to everyone back home who felt the same as I did despite far different surroundings.
Last year's action was outstanding, giving me chills as a crowd rose to its feet, singing the national anthem in unison and fueling the intensity of playoff hockey. Not only awe-inspiring, it was inspirational, celebrating sport in its truest form.
Playoff hockey has provided some of life's greatest joys and deepest pains, giving us reason to cheer no matter who we root for.
I remember, and I yearn for more.
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Pavelski will draw into the lineup for the Sharks tonight, and it should be a wild one in Nashville. Enjoy the game everybody.
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