The Morning
Line
Sports Illustrated staff writer Kostya Kennedy checks in
after each game of the Stanley Cup
finals.
Posted: Wed June 17,
1998
As the Red Wings' bus backed into the MCI Center before
Game 4, scads of Wings fans cheered madly from the
Washington streets and thunder clapped loudly overhead.
With that, it seemed, the hockey gods had ordained fate.
The last game was so like all the
others: Red Wings everywhere on the ice, Capitals gamely
trying to compete. Only this one ended in the most
convincing result of the series, 4-1, and with the Red
Wings in possession of large, gorgeous, gleaming piece of
silver.
They really love that Cup. Amid all the on-ice
celebration—and all the wonderful, honest love given
to Vladimir Konstantinov—appeared a vision as telling
as any. Scotty Bowman, wearing a black Stanley Cup cap, a
white Stanley Cup T-shirt, simply smiled.
Gone were the lines of angst that had so defined his
appearance. The anxious frown had disappeared. His look,
for the first time since the playoffs began, was soft and
satisfied. He looked younger than he had in
months.
Could they have wedged the celebration into smaller
quarters? For all the modern convenience of the MCI Center,
the visitors' locker room is a cramped and hard-edged
place. In it swarmed hundreds of people. Players, roaring,
lifted high their bottles in
celebration. Camera men pushed through. Players' wives and
loved ones sought refuge in open spaces. This was one big,
sweaty, champagne-flavored party, and the smallness of the
room only added to the intimacy of the
frenzy.
In the tributes to Konstantinov, nothing was more
impressive to these eyes than those few untelevised
moments, before the Cup came out, when Capitals players
skated over unprompted to shake Konstaninov's hand and
linger a moment by his side. These Caps
players had just been spanked for the fourth straight game,
and here was a man who had no doubt driven them into the
boards at some point in his past. Yet they cared to wish
him well. And that, more than anything the Red
Wings—who all year have handled
the Konstantinov tragedy with real regret and a classy
refusal to exploit—could say or do showed how much
larger one man's fate is than anything a hockey victory
could
produce.
Yet the Wings still loved their Cup, and rightfully so.
Scotty's face was smoothed. The Captain, Steve Yzerman,
laughed in the locker room under sprays of wine. Outside,
the thunder had
ceased.
|
NHL Finals
