My hero growing up was Dominik Hasek. I’ll be 24-years-old in a few weeks, and though I remember Jim Kelly and Thurman Thomas and Andre Reed and Bruce Smith in their primes — though I do have some blurry memories of the Super Bowl years, the guy who made me feel like a kid most often; the guy that made me feel like anything was possible was Dominik Hasek.
I used to take two old buckets in our basement and forge a makeshift goal out of them; throw a tennis ball against the wall and try to make miraculous saves, Hasek Style. I would flip a hockey puck up toward the top of our flight of stairs and try to tackle “tip” shots at the bottom of the stairway before they hit the wall behind me. In street hockey matches behind the junior high school I always played goalie in our own, Western New Yorker version of the Sandlot. I always envisioned myself as #39; flopping and diving and rolling around for no apparent reason, attempting to make saves while twisting myself into a pretzel when a little shove with my chest or a move with my blocker would have probably sufficed.
I was never a good enough skater to play real ice hockey, though had I tried sooner I might have been. The thing about those moments that endeared me to hockey, though, were how much I felt a part of something — like the guys were my extended family. And no one made me ever feel more like a kid — with that endless optimism, that “anything is possible” attitude, that pure awe in the witness of greatness, than did Dominik Hasek.
When Hasek wanted to leave time for what he perceived as greener pastures, and when the team struggled for a few years afterward, I was heart broken in a sense. I still watched the game, but I felt empty and melancholy. A lot of us felt that way, I think. The 90s teams, for their many flaws, were fun teams of many different varieties, from the scoring teams with Vapor-Trail Mogilny and LaFontaine in the early 90’s, to Ted Nolan’s scrappy band of misfits to the team with a fiery coach named Ruff whose just-good-enough system and world class goaltender almost brought Buffalo to the promise land. Never a dull moment.
And then, suddenly, boom, lots of dull moments. Market efficiencies, rebuilding on top of rebuilding, an owner who was a crook followed by a owner who is probably a bad tipper. Even in 2005-2006, when things turned around, when a team everyone looked at and expected last place almost brought Buffalo back to the Stanley Cup, I still felt a little empty. The wounds that had healed for some and the love affair that had become of an entire new generation of Sabres fans did not yet exist for me. I was excited, and some times overtaken, sure, but it was never a consistent thing.
It was a weird time, for me, too. It was the first time I was ever in what I considered was love. I was 19 years old and she was 17. We had been together for a long time — in kid time anyway, and she liked to watch the games with me. Things could not have been better. At the same of the Flyers series, when Brian Campbell steamrolled RJ Umberger and the team started to attract the attention of the whole continent, I lept out of my seat and cheered so loud you could probably hear me in Pennsylvania. I watched Danny Briere throw a game-one overtime winner in from on top of the crease on her front porch. A month later, I was in the hospital, diagnosed with diabetes and a rare liver condition, and the girl was dating another guy.
I got out of the hospital and was home in time for Game’s 6 and 7 of the series — to feel that brief euphoria after Game 6 — that “this is still possible” hope-against-hope. I was in my living room by myself when they skated off the ice for the final time.
But throughout that entire run and through the next year’s run to the President’s Trophy up until the loss to Ottawa, I never quite felt as much like a fearless, optimistic kid as I did when I saw Dominik Hasek play. There was that fearlessness about him, that utter confidence that he was going to get it done by sheer force of will. And though ultimately, he didn’t, I always felt like he felt that way, and he played that way, and that made me feel that way when I watched him.
Friday Night, there I was, now an adult, now with a job and a wife and real concerns and responsibilities. Now I live in Austin, Texas — 1,300 miles away from the arena in a city where it was 90 degrees at puck drop and most people were sun bathing by their pools or enjoying some Texas BBQ under the evening the sky. I was sitting inside, delaying my wife’s night out, sitting with my MacBook on my desk and a pair of head phones. For 2.5 hours, I shifted my body nervously and sometimes hid my head in my hands. Every so often I would startle my wife and two dogs with a mountainous yell.
I don’t know what it is about this team these past two months that have made me feel like a kid again. But every game I’m glued to the television, and I have that feeling that they’re just going to get the job done.
Now, we’re back to square one. The second season. And do I still have that feeling? I do. I think when the puck drops Thursday night, I’ll have some butterflies, mostly, but I’ve come to think that whatever demons needed to be exercised from losing Danny Briere and Chris Drury were actually never quite erased from losing Dominik Hasek, from Brett Hull in the crease, and the bad break-up.
And as much as we probably shouldn’t, who amongst us can’t be more optimistic for this series than the tough match-up against the Bruins last year, when we weren’t sure what the Sabres were made of, or if their owner from that point forward even really cared.
The 2009-2010 version of the Flyers are certainly a better team than any the Sabres have faced in their recent playoff contests. Chris Pronger will probably be back sometime in this series, and that will make it all the tougher on Buffalo. And while they were successful in their last two games against Philly, there is still some uneasiness for me as to whether or not Philadelphia has just been coasting for the past two months because, well, they could afford it.
Philadelphia is dangerous on the penalty kill, a Sabres weakness, and they were able to take advantage of lots of 2 on 1 rushes from the Sabres defense pinching — something most teams do not as easily or successfully take advantage of against the Blue and Gold.
The harder I think about it, the more I feel like Sabres Nation is a little over confident and that the Flyers are really going to come out a lot stronger than we anticipate. It’s all thinking, of course, and none of these serves any real purpose until Thursday evening, but it worries me all the same.
But I haven’t lost that kid-like feeling since it’s come back. And even if he Sabres are swept by Philadelphia, I don’t think that it’s going to go away. It matters to me because it matters to them, which is something I haven’t felt like with this team for a while. It matters to because it matters, which is something I haven’t felt like in even longer.
I’m ready for Thursday. No matter what happens, it’s time to enjoy it.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
