Yes, Tomas, There Is A Stanley Cup

"DEAR BLOGGER: I am 28 years old. Some of my little leaf friends (okay, it's Kaberle) say there is no Stanley Cup. Gomer says, 'If you see it in a blog it's so.' Please tell me the truth; is there a Stanley Cup?

Tomas Plekanec
Bell Centre, Montreal."


Tomas, your little friend is wrong. He has been affected by the leafism of a losing age. He does not believe except [what] he wins. He thinks that nothing can be won which is not comprehensible by his little mind. All minds, Tomas, whether they be Burke's or Sather's, are little. In this great universe of ours players are mere insects, ants, in their intellect, as compared with the boundless world about them, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Tomas, there is a Stanley Cup. It exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Stanley Cup. It would be as dreary as if there were no Canadiens. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this winter existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in books and movies. The eternal light with which championships fill the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in the Stanley Cup! You might as well not believe in Santa Claus! You might get your GM to hire men to hit everything that moves and who can score at will to catch the Stanley Cup, but even if they did not win the Cup, what would that prove? Nobody buys the Stanley Cup, but that is no sign that there is no Stanley Cup. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see character and sacrifice visible on a man's face? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the Chris Pronger's head and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not Chris Nilan, nor even the united strength of Nilan, Laraque and Boogaard could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the winning and the glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Tomas, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Stanley Cup! Thank God! it lives, and it lives forever. A thousand years from now, Tomas, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, it will continue to make glad the heart of fandom.