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TORONTO – Serge Ibaka buried his face in his long arms and cried. He wasn’t alone.
The building was shaking in noise and emotion. Right here in quiet Toronto. Shaking. It was loud and then louder and then loudest. With cheers and then tears. A Toronto sporting night unlike any before it.
The night the rings came out and the NBA championship banner was unveiled and the celebration that went on all summer just got better. A new season begins — the old may never end.
You can’t always explain a night like this. It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve seen it. It doesn’t matter how many places you’ve been. You have to live it. You have to feel it. You have to watch. You have to take in every nuance and every twist of the pre-game video and the presentations. And then you have to take in more.
Tuesday, the first night of the new NBA season, had a certain built-in anticipation to it. This is new for so many of us. A championship of this magnitude. A city not used to winning major titles, finally winning one after 26 years of waiting. The Raptors had never played for a title before. The Leafs haven’t played for a title since the NHL had six teams.
The Blue Jays have not been to the World Series since Joe Carter hit the home run. And then the incredible and impossible and the magical all came together in a whirlwind of a circumstance in once-in-a-lifetime season, with a one-named superhero swooping into town, without a cape, lifting the team, lifting the franchise, carrying the country along for the ride. Kawhi Leonard did that in his one season in Toronto. He was like a Springsteen concert every night he played. You never left wanting more. He delivered everything he could. Like a magician, he turned adequate into sensational, he fulfilled every aspect of the deal that brought him here. And then he left for home.
The ring is huge. But it seems all championship rings are huge these days. One win seems bigger than the next one. Except this one is ours. It’s personal. It’s national. And who knows when we’ll have another year like the last one, another night like the last one? You cherish every moment on a night like this. This whole season should be nothing but applause.