Miracle in San José, or Why I’ll never forget the name Barclay Goodrow.
I love sports. I love a good story. By the transitive property of equality, I love a good sports story.
A good sports story is a microcosm of the human condition. It incorporates equal doses of heartache and joy, confusion and clarity, pain and ecstasy. It speaks to the core of our self-doubt and in the same moment sparks our ego to believe that anything truly is possible. To paraphrase the late John Wooden, a good sports story doesn’t build character — it reveals it.
Last night’s Game 7 overtime throwdown between my hometown Sharks and the upstart Vegas squad in the first round of the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs qualifies as a great sports story.
As much as I love all manner of sports — and proudly confess to finding the beauty in badminton — I’ve never been a big hockey fan, and you won’t see me entering the “Paint Your House Teal” contest (for which my wife is very grateful). I was born 14 years B.S. (Before Sharks) and never really adopted the team or the pastime. At the end of the day, I’m a Cali boy, and any sport not played on grass and dirt makes very little sense to me.
But I played enough EA NHL ’94 to know a thing or two, so I wasn’t entirely out of my element sitting down in front of a flat screen in my home office to watch the first full hockey game I’d consumed in at least three years. (Thankfully, these Sharks play at a much faster clip than the rag tag bunch in those first few years on Sega Genesis.)
Like any sensible sports fan, I suspected my sudden and utterly bandwagon-ish interest might “jinx” the home team, but I was willing to throw caution to the wind. After all, this was Game 7, and there’s no such thing as jinxes. Right?
About three and a half minutes into the third period, I realized I had made a horrible mistake. The Knights were up 3–0, the Shark Tank had fallen eerily silent, and my dog refused to look at me. (Okay, that last part isn’t true, but it felt like it was.)
So when “Little” Joe Pavelski was waylaid by a cheap-shot cross check and collapsed in a limp, bloody mess on the ice, I gave up and went to the kitchen to do what I do when I’m frustrated and nervous: meal prep. But I kept the TV on and my head down.
Seven seconds later, as I was peeling a baked sweet potato to slice and put in the food processor, Couture scored. Then Hertl. Then Courture again. And finally Labanc. Before I could utter the words “Who the f*** is Labanc?”, the Sharks were in control.
Normally, I might’ve lost my will and returned to full absorption in the game, but my wife arrived home from work just in time to keep me distracted, as the Knights equalized in the final minute — of course — and the game headed to overtime.
The next 20 minutes for me was an exercise in self control. All my disinterest in the sport of hockey melted away in the wake of my pure and unadulterated passion for sports itself, as I struggled to keep my attention on DVR replays of Jeopardy! and The Voice in the living room while the real drama played out in another room, on another TV.
When the winning goal finally came, at the hand of a virtually anonymous fourth-liner named Barclay Goodrow — of course — I only saw it on replay. But the thrill of the game was coursing through my heart the whole time. Because I love a good story. And I love sports.
Now, die hard fans of the Vegas Golden Knights — all five of them — likely navigated an inverted series of the same emotions during the same game, and unfortunately, they don’t have the win to make it all feel worthwhile. But trust me, the heartache and the confusion and the pain will all come full circle one day.
Just ask any fan of a team that’s waited 30 years for a championship.
