Tough-luck Blues reverse course to compete for title
ST. LOUIS — Stanley Jackson and buddy Steven Crow can be excused if they tend to watch their beloved St. Louis Blues with their hands over their eyes, waiting for the next thing to go wrong.
So when the Blues beat the San Jose Sharks in Game 6 to earn their first berth in the Stanley Cup Final since 1970, a series with the Boston Bruins 49 years in the making, the two friends couldn’t hold back.
“We were like two 9-yearolds,” Jackson, 52, said. “We were hugging and jumping. We were crying like babies.”
There’s a lot of that going around in St. Louis. After all, few sports fans anywhere have suffered like Blues fans.
The franchise has shown a remarkable ability to tease but disappoint — missing the playoffs nine times but never winning the Cup. Management lost three coaches who went on to win 16 Stanley Cup championships. The Blues would have abandoned St. Louis in the 1980s but the new destination was a Canadian outpost so obscure the NHL wouldn’t allow it.
It's been a wild ride, and Susan Kelly has had a frontrow seat. Kelly, a 55-year-old lawyer, is the daughter of Dan Kelly, the legendary hockey broadcaster who called Blues games until his death in 1989. She inherited his love for the sport and the team, attending every home game with her 82-year-old mom. Kelly pulled out of an African safari so she won’t miss the final that starts Monday in Boston.
“It was a no-brainer,” Kelly said. “I bought the trip insurance just for this reason.”
Despite their checkered past, the Blues have a rabid, devoted fan base, even as they share a city with baseball’s beloved and storied Cardinals. Devotion to the hockey team only grew in 2016 when the NFL’s Rams bolted for Los Angeles. Now, it’s not uncommon for Cardinals stars such as Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright to show up at a Blues game.
The Blues’ best run of success came right off the bat. The NHL doubled in size to 12 teams in 1967 and put all six expansion teams in one division, guaranteeing one of them would reach the Stanley Cup Final.
St. Louis loaded the roster with aging veterans, including eventual Hall of Fame goaltenders Glenn Hall and Jacques Plante, and it worked — kind of: The Blues made the final their first three seasons but were swept every time — by Montreal in 1968 and 1969 and by the Bruins in 1970, where Bobby Orr’s series-winning overtime goal came just after he was tripped by St. Louis’ Noel Picard, resulting in the iconic photo of Orr seemingly flying.
Maybe that trip was bad karma — until now, the Blues hadn’t come close to returning to the final, a fact made more remarkable because they’re almost always in the playoffs, including 25 straight seasons starting in 1979.
This season started out to be just another in a long line of disappointments. Despite several offseason acquisitions, the Blues were awful. Players fought in practice. Coach Mike Yeo was fired and replaced by assistant Craig Berube. By Jan. 3, St. Louis had the worst record in the NHL. Two days later, the Blues called up goalie Jordan Binnington, 25, from the San Antonio Rampage. He won in a shutout in his first start and the turnaround was on.
St. Louis won a franchiserecord 11 consecutive games and the Blues went from a team considering trading stars such as Vladimir Tarasenko to a contender.