Ah, what a glorious day.  The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the Flyers are at home crying because Patrick Kane scored in OT to give the Hawks the Stanley Cup. 

Fan-freakin-tastic.

The ultra-quick game summary goes as follows:  Tied 1-1 after 1.  Hawks up 3-2 after 2.  The Flyers’ Scott Hartnell tied the game at 3-3 with 4 minutes left to force OT.

The Hawks were back on their heels in the overtime period.  The Flyers had the momentum.  They scored the last goal.  The crowd was roaring.  And then, Kane scored perhaps the strangest goal in Cup-clinching history.  He shot it right through the legs of Flyer goalie Michael Leighton, and immediately began to celebrate.  Nobody else knew what happened.  The television announcers weren’t much help:

“He shoots, and…oh, it rattled around in front and kicked out…and, wait…he scores!(?).  The light is not on.  No buzzer has not sounded, but Kane is down the ice and the Blackhawks are celebrating…”

Replays confirmed the goal, and it was all over.  An anticlimactic end to an NHL season, to be sure.  Unless you’re a Hawks fan.  Then you don’t give a flying flip about how it happened.  You’re just glad that your boys brought home Cup for the first time in almost five decades. 

Jonathan Toews won the Conn Smythe, which was ok.  It was predictable at least, and he did have a good playoffs.  If I were giving it out, it would have gone to Dustin Byfuglien.  The guy was just a beast during this playoff run, and I don’t think one person did more on both sides of the ice than he did.

And if you’re a Philly hater, which at least 2/3 of the writers on this blog are, there couldn’t have been a sweeter sight (outside of our teams winning) than Dan Carcillo, Chris Pronger, and Dan Hartnell sitting dejected on the bench watching the Blackhawks celebrate.  To paraphrase a quote from the great Eric Cartman: their tears of anguish sustain me.

Personally, for the most part, I like the Hawks.  Good young team, fun guys.  I’m not a fan of Marion Hossa but I can let that slide, especially if the alternative is a Flyers’ Cup victory.  But even if I didn’t care one way or another about the Hawks, almost anything is preferable to watching the Flyers win.  So I’ll lift an Old Style and play Chelsea Dagger in celebration of their victory.  Not only because they deserve it, but because the alternative is too disturbing to imagine.  God Bless Chicago.