In what will inevitably be considered the most controversial selection in our top ten countdown, we here at the Digest are sticking to our guns and picking last season's eliminating game against rivals Prestige Worldwide as the number two moment of 2009. Why? Consider the following:
What makes something so special that it can be classified as a top moment? I think two things necessitate being dubbed as such. For one, there has to be triumph. By this I am not adhering to a strict interpretation of the word triumph where, in a hockey sense, only victory equates triumph. There are ways to lose and be triumphant, and though the situation rarely presents itself, when it does, it should be savored.
Secondly, there has to be a strong emotion attached to the moment. A 20-4 walloping of a team might look great in the boxscore, but eleven minutes into the contest when the game is out of reach, the players on both teams have lost the fire. There needs to be a gut wrenching, nail biting aspect of a game that sends fans to the doctors afterward for blood pressure checkups. Let's use an analogy, one that many will enjoy (or hate, since the topic is painful). At the second intermission of game 7 between the Capitals and Penguins last year, I had made peace with the season coming to an end. The agony I had felt earlier in the game, watching the eventual cup winners make the score 1-0, then 2-0, then 3, 4, and 5-0, had vanquished, and I watched the zambonis resurface the ice for the final time as Kitt provided the solemn organ music. I was disheartened, but not destroyed. Contrast that with one year earlier when I sat and watched the Flyers score in overtime to eliminate the Capitals in game 7. My world was rocked. Forget Kitt, I wanted to hijack a zamboni and kamikaze the liberty bell. Sudden death is just that, sudden. It is painful, agonizing, and a breeding ground of irrational thought and rage.
So, did the playoff loss meet both requirements? I would certainly say so. Sure, the Soviets were defeated, and the loss stung for several hours or days, but when the dust settled people realized what had just been accomplished. A team that hadn't had a winning record in three years just won ten games in a row to set a franchise record in points, then, after a bye, beat their biggest rivals to advance the farthest they've ever been into postseason play, and then was eliminated with a power play goal that came with less than a second on the clock in regulation. Sure, heartbreak... but triumph too.
As for the emotion, the fact that I still can't even write about it is a testament to how painful that loss still resonates. Even today, some two months and three days since this, I still shy away from detailing the events of that last second goal mouth scrum. Like the raping of Indiana Jones in the memories of the children of South Park, I see it in my dreams at night, replaying slower and slower as the loose puck trickles across the goal line.
Ahhhh, maybe this season will be different.
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