MEASURING CUP
FROM Dr. Emrick of Urgent Care: Take two Stanley Cup games and call me in the morning.
Not to be an ingrate, but I wish the Stanley Cup Final had lasted seven instead of six games. Chicken soup on ice, good for what ails us.
On June 17, in Toronto, of all places, the Yankees were playing the Blue Jays when Alejandro Kirk hit a home run then was met by teammates in the dugout who insisted on — and assisted in—- his wearing a “Home Run Jacket.”
There was one problem with this scene: The Jays were having their collective professional butts kicked. Kirk’s solo homer cut the Yanks’ lead to 10-2 in an eventual 12-3 loss.
That manager Charlie Montoyo, his team expected to win the AL East but then 12 games behind the Yanks, would indulge this was a poor reflection on his leadership and the state of MLB.
If this scene, the equivalent of NFL players performing me-dances down big, late in games, were not totally unexpected it would have still been nauseating. Down, 10-2, the Jays threw a party in full view of paying customers!
Yet, it fell in line with pandering and detached Rob Manfred’s stated goal to attract younger fans with acts of “fun,” as if kids need more desensitization, as if, neglected by MLB for the past 40 years in exchange for TV money, kids need this kind of indoctrination.
But this is what sports insist on doing to sports and to us, their once-devoted fan base that must suffer greater and more expensive indignities and absurdities to continue.
That’s where the Stanley Cup Final, and not a moment too soon, skated to our rescue.
The last three games of Colorado-Tampa Bay were of the “Wow!” species. Fantastic action at all-the-time top speed. No one jogged to first base, made a muscle-man pose or danced around like a self-smitten jerk after body checking an opponent. The intensity of all three one-goal games was both astonishing and anticipated, as these were Stanley Cup games.
And neither team risked the loss of speed to include a regular season goon to beon-the-lookout penalties.
The final period of Sunday night’s Cup winner — despite stoppages for equipment repairs, a replay review, injuries and TV commercials, et al. — ran just 31 minutes. It again starred both teams in sustained back-andforth, desperate, high-speed action — like an old CelticsLakers playoff game.
Given that modern marketing strategies have not yet afflicted the NHL or have been rejected by coaches and players, no scored goals were followed by look-at-me demonstrations toward the nearest TV camera, a mime of a dog urinating on the boards (or opposing goalie) or the scorer grabbing his crotch (to soon be rewarded with Subway sandwich commercial endorsements).
Instead, the scorer immediately found the nearest teammate or the one who made the pass to express and share joy and thanks.
In fact, throughout the Cup, ESPN and Turner were stuck: No slow-mo (or any “mo”) replays of players in self-aggrandizing, chestpounding mode to show en route to commercials, as per the mindless NFL TV norm.
Sunday’s second period included that commercial for Mass Mutual Insurance, the one with snippets of interviews with NHL players, all of them reflexively referencing themselves as part of a team. The close of the ad reminds us, “It’s never I. It’s we.”
Such a cornball ad would be laughed out of other sports’ marketing strategy meetings. Worse, the Avalanche-Lightning series had no vulgar Twitter challenges and namecalling to fuel the sell.
Still, many of the fans in Tampa’s arena stuck around to applaud the Avalanche and Lightning, the latter the winners of the previous two Cups, as they exchanged postgame handshakes, a noble tradition that modern marketing wisdom would have wiped off the idea board.
And fans of both teams stuck around to applaud the Avs as they skated with the Cup. From where I watched, not a piece of garbage was thrown at the visiting victors.
The best came after Avs defenseman Cale Makar, just 23, was summoned to receive the Conn Smythe Trophy as the Stanley Cup MVP.
He skated to it, posed for a quick photo, then handed it to a fellow standing off ice. He wanted to return to cherish the moments with his team. No matter how deserving, Makar didn’t want or need to wear that Home Run Jacket.