Sensational and Surreal Start of Summer Season 2019!…part 6: What St. Louisan Wouldn’t Love This Parade?

     Saturday, June 15 was officially declared St. Louis Blues Day!  Our friends Dave and Pam Stephens had asked my girlfriend Pam and me if we wanted to join them and Paula for the downtown St. Louis Blues Stanley Cup victory parade. 

      While my Pam declined on the basis of many potential pain plus hours of continuous walking and standing, I was certainly game!  After following hockey religiously in St. Louis for 56 years (including the St. Louis Braves of the Central Hockey League from 1963-67), I was WAY overdue for an official victory celebration!

     I was naturally up very early and was picked up shortly thereafter at a restaurant parking lot on St. Charles Rock Road.  There was still some very light rain downtown when we reached our 18^th and Market standing area around 9:30.  Nearly all of the sparse gathering at that early hour stood under umbrellas.

   Within a half hour, it stopped raining for the rest of the day.  Around that time, I pointed up toward the sky that I could see (Blues rookie goaltender) Jordan Binnington parting the clouds just as he had often performed miracles on the ice! 
 











Our group excitedly took photos of one another, proudly posed in our long-time or very new St. Louis Blues garb.  I was also thrilled to have a photo or two taken of myself with PuckMan!

     Over the next two hours or so, the crowds kept building dramatically as did the anticipation level.  Hundreds more joined us in our own small area, with most standing more in front of us than behind.  Tents were set up several hours before us right on Market Street by those who appeared to have camped out for the parade. They all finally heeded the loud and lengthy chants of “Take them down” prior to the parade’s commencement.

     We stood in our area from 9:30 until noon, talking and joking around with sooooo many former strangers.  There were also a few people carrying mock Stanley Cups over their heads as they walked in front of us, heading east toward the Arch. There were people ranging in age from newborns to those who appeared to be in their 70s and 80s.  

     After all, we all had one thing in common, whether long-time hockey fans or ones who just got into the mix some time this season.  We couldn’t wait to see our heroes motor down Market Street for what seemed like an impossibility in the first few days of 2019 when we stood dead last among 31 National Hockey League teams!

     The one-hour parade pretty much started at the 1 p.m. scheduled time.  Immediately, cell phones and a few regular cameras came alive and were snapping away relentlessly!  Since I’m rather short at 5-8, and my cell phone is not of the $900 variety, I probably ended up deleting nearly half and cropped the vast majority of surviving ones.   But like everyone else, I was just thrilled that parade time was finally upon us! 

Leading the way was Blues mascot Louie, as in “Meet me in St. Louie, Louie!”  This wasn’t the 1904 World’s Fair, but it matched the overall thrill of the very best of St. Louis celebrations, including the Rams’ 2000 Super Bowl parade and several for the St. Louis baseball Cardinals!

     Then, there were “Gloria” signs referring to the Blues late-season fight song released back in 1982 by the late Laura Branigan.  There were also huge Stanley Cup Championship banners and signs that read, “Hey, buddy.  The Cup is ours” and “History Made.” The first among very few actual parade floats included the Old Courthouse in front of the Arch. 

     For much of the time, it was a matter of trying to figure out which of the few old-time Blues and the regular-playing Blues could be sighted because there were quite a few backup players also there well beyond the traditional NHL roster of 20 or so.

     
The first I noted was forward Robby Fabbri, who had missed the entire 2017-18 season with a knee injury.  It’s noteworthy here that all members of Stanley Cup champions can hold onto Lord Stanley’s Cup and do almost whatever they want to during those days.  Would you believe that Fabbri served spaghetti from it?

     Rough-playing defenseman Robert Bortuzzo was the next active player I recognized.  Next was forward Oskar Sundqvist and defenseman Joel Edmundson.  They were followed by a lengthy stop in front of us from Blues number two net minder, Jake Allen with his wife and two young children. 

     Popular forward line mates Brayden (Schenn) and Jaden (Schwartz) rode together, followed by big, burly defenseman Colton Parayko, also known for his wicked slapshot. Blues perennial superstar Vladimir Tarasenko was there with wife and kids.

Next was a lengthy appearance high up on a float by popular center Ryan O’Reilly, who came to the Blues in an off-season trade from the Buffalo Sabres.  O’Reilly had previously stated how unhappy he was in Buffalo, and was seriously considering retiring.  But O’Reilly’s life changed dramatically after being traded to the Blues for veterans Patrick Berglund and Vladimir Sobotka and young prospect Tage Thompson.

     At the time, most NHL analysts considered the trade to be a big win for Buffalo.  But not only were the Sabres a below-.500 team during the season, the Blues came up HUGE as O’Reilly won the Frank J. Selke trophy as the league’s best two-way forward, and ultimately won the Conn Smythe trophy as the post-season’s Most Valuable Player as the Blues went on to beat Boston, 4 games to 3 in the finals. 

     O’Reilly just happened to have that Conn Smythe Trophy with him on the float, which featured an enormous replica of the Stanley Cup!  Sporting a flat and dark, wide-brimmed hat atop a head that features a huge, puffy beard, O’Reilly looked more like a member of the Amish community than a Stanley Cup elite!

     Finally, there was defenseman Alex Pietrangelo.  He took over captaincy duties a few seasons ago after long-time favorite David Backes left the team on July 1, 2016 to sign a lucrative free agent deal with none other than the Boston Bruins.  Inexplicably, the Bruins did not suit up Backes in the last three games of this year’s Stanley Cup Finals against his long-time team.

     But on this parade day, it was Backes’ team captain successor who felt the joy.  Riding atop the Budweiser vehicle, Pietrangelo reached high in the air, hoisting Lord Stanley’s Cup into the air, just as he was the first to do so the night of June 12, 2019, when the fairy tale dream finally came true!