After half-century of frustration, Blues can exorcise demons
ST. LOUIS (AP) >> 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, just waiting for the next thing to go wrong.
So when the Blues beat the San Jose Sharks in Game 7 to earn their first berth in the Stanley Cup Final since 1970, a rematch with the Boston Bruins 49 years in the making, the two old 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 ultimately disappoint — missing the playoffs just 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. In fact, 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-ofFame 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 serieswinning overtime goal came just after he was tripped by St. Louis’ Noel Picard, resulting in the iconic photo of Orr seemingly flying through the air.
Maybe that trip was bad karma — until now, the Blues hadn’t come close to returning to the final, a fact made even more remarkable because they’re almost always in the playoffs, including 25 straight seasons starting in 1979.
So star-crossed is the franchise that what is widely considered the greatest game in Blues history was a prelude to disappointment. Dubbed the “Monday Night Miracle,” the Blues trailed Calgary 5-2 with 12 minutes to play in Game 6 of the 1986 Western Conference final, tied it with a frantic rally and won it on Doug Wickenheiser’s goal 7:30 into overtime.
Naturally, they lost Game 7.
Adding to the angst for fans is what could have been. The Blues were eliminated from the playoffs one year despite having both Wayne Gretzky and Brett Hull on the team. Hull, Brendan Shanahan and T.J. Oshie are among countless stars who became champions after leaving St. Louis.