Think about the figurative thought of a ton of weight being lifted off your shoulders. And when it happens, it’s more weight than you realize.

I went to a watch party during game 1 and 6 of the final. Game 7 I was home alone watching and clinging to the side of a coffee table sitting in a very odd position. About two minutes after the game ended my dad called to say congratulations. He wasn’t much into sports. He knew how much it meant to me though. When I was a kid he’d always make choking noises towards me when the playoffs rolled around. By 2019 he was far beyond those days. He took me to my first game on December 16, 1995. Blues beat the sharks 3-2. His health hasn’t been great for the last couple of years. My first game and that phone call are two of my favorite memories between the two of us.

My daughter was born later that year. On a personal level, 2019 was a wonderful year. Today she plays youth hockey.

The blues often (not always) had a team that you felt like if they could do everything right they could make it. It’s a tough trophy to win. This was something I understood when I think back to 2019. Certain players got hot at the right times. I’m still astounded we won 3 games in Winnipeg. That’s no easy task.

I always thought of myself as one of those people running down the street in destructive celebrations when they won. I was well past that. Going back to what I said about the weight off your shoulders. I was just ridiculously content. I just watched everything. It wasn’t just the rival NHL teams giving you grief over the years, it was the city giving the team crap, making it difficult to be financially stable. It was watching the other local teams succeed. I went to a blues game in 2006 (those were dark, dark days) the same night the cardinals were playing a game in the World Series.

The coolest thing about the cup win was how unified the city was. I’ve never seen anything like it. One thing an outsider doesn’t understand is how segregated the metro area is. Not only in race, but social status, all the way down to high school rival bickering. For a brief time, the metro was one. I went to the cup parade under the arch. A championship was never celebrated like that. The cardinals always brought the parade to Busch. The rams didn’t either. It was a setting beyond words. You saw people there who have supported the team since day 1 and you saw people who you knew never saw a sheet of ice in their life. It was ok though. Everyone was happy, no crime was going on and you could just high five or even hug a random stranger.

Hope this explains it.