Dreams Were Meant To Be Fulfilled This Weekend

  When you are a child, you have dreams. Many of them are realistic, many just are fantasies that you wouldn’t wildly believe that you could ever accomplish. 

In my seventy-four plus years on this planet, I have dreamed aplenty. I thought that I would be a major league baseball player and play for the New York Yankees. I repeatedly dreamed I would play in the Stanley Cup Finals for the New York Rangers and score a goal and be penalized. 

When Hawaii and Alaska became states, I dreamed those were places I’d like to visit. Along with the other 48 states. Done.

Why not see the Redwoods in California, those majestic trees showed repeatedly in my National Geographic? Or go to all of the Great Lakes—how cool that would be?

Why be limited—what about seeing the canals in Venice? Or stare at Big Ben? Ot even head to Ottawa, Canada’s capital—after all, I dreamed of seeing Congress and the Supreme Court one day, too. 

How about Europe and South Africa, including the Cape of Good Hope? The Louisiana Delta? Key West? A Caribbean island?

I dreamed I would meet a President—best I have done is have Gerald Ford shake my hand while he mistakenly entered my car under the House of Representative portico. Just as much as I wanted to date a cheerleader—did that twice. I was not overwhelmed by either one. 

So many thoughts and so many places I have been to. Which led to creating a bucket list a number of years ago, just before I retired from defending juveniles accused of what would be crimes if they were adults. And becoming a lawyer and arguing in a Supreme Court (New Jersey’s) was another dream come true. 

Look, I’m not going to get to everything on the list. It isn’t feasible and I am not getting any younger. I have had the great fortune to do so much because that’s been my lot since childhood when my family routinely traveled cross-country by car—even before the Interstate Highway Network was completed and you had to turn off your car radios in blast areas in the Rockies where I-70 now runs. 

This travel lust also became sports-oriented by where we went. From watching every kind of imaginable sporting event, I have gone to so many venues and colleges. All of which are indelibly etched in my mind. 

Name a place and I’ve driven by it, poked my head inside of it or saw an actual event at. It. Old Boston Garden to see the Celtics? Sure. Every New York stadium or arena I have entered or rode past. Ditto multiple stadiums and arenas in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C.; heck I have seen the Sixers play in the Convention Center, Spectrum and Wells Fargo Center. 

I don’t have many colleges left to see, although I still harbor the idea of seeing a game at one of them. I still haven’t seen the New York Jets play an away game. Just Fenway Park in Boston and I will have seen at least one baseball game in a franchise’s stadium. 

Many make it a point of living out their dreams. I know I’m one of those people. 

This weekend was about dreamers. Rory Mc Ilroy fulfilled his dream on Sunday when he won the Masters on the first playoff hole. He did it on his eleventh try on the most beautiful golf course in the land. All the sacrifices and hard work he and his parents endured paid off. 

Now Mc Ilroy is just the sixth ever to have won the US Open, PGA, British Open and the Masters during a career. He joins an illustrious group: Gene Sarazen (who for many years hosted Shell’s Wide World of Golf); Ben Hogan (who came back from a horrific car accident to win titles again); Arnold Palmer (the Latrobe, PA youngster who captivated the nation); Gary Player (the dynamic South African); Jack Nicklaus (the lad from Ohio State who started out heat but became maybe the greatest golfer ever); and Tiger Woods (the golfing prodigy who gave us so many thrills). That’s some company. All of them had big dreams.

There were dreamers at the Frozen Four. The blue bloods were ably represented by Boston University and the University of Denver—the latter went into the weekend as the favorite to repeat as national champion. Then there were the upstarts—Penn State and Western Michigan. Not too many expected the newbies to advance let alone win it all.

In the semi-finals, Penn State held its own, although BU prevailed. Denver was throttled by the WMU Broncos in double overtime.

Boston University was a six time winner. WMU never had won. When the smoke cleared in St. Louis on Saturday night, BU’s title drought is now 16 years and counting while WMU continued to accumulate firsts in its program by winning the National Championship—the first in any sport since the men won in Cross Country in 1964 & 1965. The final score was 6-2. The memories will be that much more special. 

But this weekend was also about me fulfilling a dream, too. No, not in golf; the closest I come to golf is watching the Masters, associating with those who play at Brooklake Country Club and having an annoying case of Golfer’s Elbow. 

Since my wife could not go to Canada to see the final installment of the Father-Son New Jersey Devils hockey trips when the Devils played in Montreal this past January, my son broached a crazy idea. How about seeing the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs play on a Saturday Night—Hockey Night in Canada.

Knowing that I would not leave my wife alone as she recuperated from hip replacement surgery, we made the arrangements for the trip. With her blessing. A trip to Montreal will have to come another time. 

The genesis of this idea was my telling my son about the importance of Hockey Night in Canada—a staple on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s radio and TV broadcasts. In my youth, the two Canadian franchises of the Original Six—Montreal and Toronto would be home, hosting an American team for the majority of the time. 

We would every once in a while be exposed to bonus coverage from Canada. That would come from the CBC. Sometimes it would be regular season games; other times, the feeds involved the playoffs. Listening to Bill Hewitt, the son of the great Foster Hewitt (first to say (he shoots, he scores!) describe the action on the screen was incredible. I was mesmerized. 

My history as a hockey fan goes back to the late 1950’s when I watched the Game of the Week on CBS. I also was exposed to Saturday night New York Rangers telecasts on WOR-TV. It seemed so incredible to see the legends of hockey for the Canadian teams—Richard, Believe, Lafleur, Dryden, Robinson in Montreal and Mahovlich, Horton, Keon, Armstrong, Pulford and Bower in Toronto. 

Toronto was formidable in the 1960’s. So was Montreal. Detroit, too, with Gordie Howe. The Rangers, Chicago and Boston took turns getting into playoffs with the Canadiens and Leafs when there were only six teams. 

Things changed when expansion occurred. More teams. Less centralized in the two powerful Canadian teams. 

I became a Rangers season ticket holder in 1977, 18 years after my first in-person game at Madison Square Garden, when I saw the Black Hawks lose to the Rangers in a rare Saturday afternoon matinee (televised on CBS). I came to dislike Montreal, Toronto to a lesser extent and Boston because they had become good. 

This animus continued when I became a New Jersey Devils fan. I hated (with awe) the Habs (a nickname for Montreal) and Leafs. Even while the Devils were winning three Stanley Cups.

When I accepted my son’s invitation and secured tickets to Scotiabank Arena, it was to see what this hated rivalry was about. I knew that in the 1950’s and 60’s, a lot of blood was spilled when they got together. It was Anglo Canada versus French Canada. Plus the influence the CBC gave a nation for its beloved sport.

While on the train from Pearson International Airport, we overheard a group of older individuals who were in town for the game. They were from Nova Scotia and one woman of the four conversing was a Habs fan. 

Throughout Toronto, interspersed within the fabric of so many Leafs jerseys and hats were the red, whit and blue jerseys for the Canadiens. Maybe plenty more people bought tickets on the secondary market like we did. Moreover, the night before in Ottawa, we saw on TV that there was a throaty contingent of Hats fans cheering on their team. Loyalty abounded. 

Canadian sports TV made mention that this was a huge game for playoff contention for Montreal and playoff seeding for the Leafs. No fewer than five networks would be covering the game. After all, it was Hockey Night in Canada with the top participants going at it. 

Walking to the arena, the city was awash with jerseys for both teams, representing so many eras. It was a joyous, buoyant group—unlike the hostility accompanying an Islanders-Rangers game at MSG. 

Inside the arena, the electricity was apparent from the outset. The in-house hosts on the big screen hyped how specials this night was—an Original Six matchup between Montreal and Toronto. 

Given the political climate in Canada with elections upcoming and the sudden trade wars and remarks by President Donald J. Trump about making Canada the 51st state, the singing of “O’ Canada” was especially stirring. The noise at the start of the game was deafening. 

The contest chugged along slowly at first. When the Leafs’ star John Tavares was hit hard and no penalty was called, the only fight in the game took place, with the crowd roaring its approval. 

I felt partial for the Leafs because they hadn’t won a Cup since 1967 and their goalie was from New Jersey, born in Edison and raised in Jackson. For much of the game, Toronto outshot and outplayed Montreal. Yet early on I had a hunch this would be a scoreless tie. Which is how it ended in in regulation. 

Then boom—the game was over 36 seconds into overtime when Leafs star Mitch Marner wristed the game winner into the net. Out into the night went dejected Canadiens fans and jovial Leafs partisans. 

I was euphoric. It was a classic late season game pitting two ancient rivals. I completed a long-standing bucket list item.

Just like the inner child in me, or with Rory Mc Ilroy or on Western Michigan’s men’s hockey team, dreams were meant to be fulfilled this weekend.