|
My treasured piece of memorabilia…
December 19, 2006: Boston Bruins at Ottawa Senators.
I’m a Bruins fan, and my dad had a friend with a pair of front-row season tickets in Ottawa. The owner of the tickets wasn’t using them, and he knew that I was a big Bruins fan, so he gave them to my dad to take me to the game (“Because everyone should see the game up close at least once”).
I was ECSTATIC! We were sitting in the Bruins end (right beside the penalty box), so I had my jersey, and a sign. Got there early for the warmups, and I’m banging the glass and nerding out (Chara is so huge!). Got a couple taps-on-the-glass from some of the players, so I was LOVING IT!
As a Bruins fan… amazing game. Boston won 7-2. The game ends and my dad wants to go. I get him to stay –“It’s going to take forever to leave anyway, let’s just stick around for the three stars”.
Announcer: “The third star of the game, from the Boston Bruins, Patrice Bergeron!” *music plays, Bergie doesn’t come out because… well… it’s not his home game.
“The Second star of the game, from the Ottawa Senators, Daniel Alfredsson!” *music plays, Alfie comes out, does a half-assed loop, gives his stick to a kid, and goes off.
“And the first star, from the Boston Bruins, Marco Sturm!” *music plays, and whoa… what’s this? Sturm is actually coming out onto the ice?!
I was sitting directly across from the players’ tunnel, and Sturm was skating over RIGHT to where I was sitting (at this point we were starting to walk up the aisle to leave). I could see Sturm looking into the crowd… and we made eye contact -HOLY CRAP!! HE’S LOOKING FOR ME!!
Sturm was holding a stick, and he started to motion that he was going to throw it over the glass to me. I run down a bit, he tosses the stick over, aaaaaand another fan reached up to grab it and gets his hands on it. We start a tug-of-war, and then Sturm starts banging on the glass. He shakes his head and shoots a dirty look at the other guy trying to take the stick. Other guy lets go, Marco gives me a thumbs up, and I’m smiling from ear to ear.
“HOLY CRAP!! I JUST GOT A… SIGNED SENS STICK?!?!”
I guess Marco didn’t want to give up a game stick, and I guess the Bruins don’t take giveaway stuff on the road, so I now have an Ottawa Senators stick signed by Marco Sturm! (It is one of those blank white wood sticks with the team name & logo you see when you get a whole team to sign for some charity giveaway).
What I love is that means at some point Marco Sturm went out of his way to get someone to get him a stick to sign to give to me, some random fan in a different market, at some random game in the middle of the season. I always like Sturm but THAT… THAT made me a Sturm fan for life.
Still have the stick, and I still don’t know what to do with it, but I’ll *NEVER* get rid of it.
|
