On Friday night, an apprehensive crowd milled around Salt Hill Pub just waiting for something to happen in game seven of the NHL's Eastern Conference finals between the Boston Bruins and the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The game was completely free of penalties and pretty clean as well, so, as time wore on, the fans got louder and more impatient a goal or a fight needed to happen to break the tension.
The scoreless game was almost unbearable, and it seemed as if the fans at Salt Hill were hesitant to get their hopes up. To be fair, the Bruins haven't made the championship since the year I was born (1990, I'm a baby). Finally, as my table asked for the check, it happened.
With less than eight minutes to go in the game, center David Krejci created a fissure in the Lightning's defense and got the puck to Nathan Horton. The winger had already taken five unsuccessful shots by that point in the night, but this time it was easy just a tap and the puck was past Tampa's goalie.
Over a hundred miles from the Garden, the satellite crowd gathered at Salt Hill exploded in celebration. One little tap-in was all Boston needed to control the rest of the game as the clock expired, and with that we were finally in the championship.
Now that we're potentially just a few wins away from the Stanley Cup, I'm not sure how to feel, since Boston hasn't actually won it all since 1972. That's way before my time.
Luckily, my baseball loyalty has always been tied to New York, so as a Yankees fan I'm comfortable with being a champion. To claim that title, we'll rely on the strength of Tim Thomas between the pipes his 24-save shutout was crucial to Friday's hard-fought victory.
Not all of my teams were quite so lucky this weekend, however. Sunday marked the arrival of the highly-anticipated Panhell flag football tournament. Armed with mouth guards, Tri Delt went into our first-round game with high hopes. We exited the game battered and bruised.
After that first devastating loss, we went on to win our final two matches, securing the top spot in the losers' bracket. Later, we were somewhat relieved to see that Sigma Delt, our first-round adversary, proved a serious threat to KDE in the championship game we weren't the only team to struggle against Sigma Delt's athleticism and physicality.
While we were overmatched at first, our team in large part made up of track athletes was able to showcase its speed in the second and third games, when our running backs repeatedly sped past defenders into the end zone.
We were also lucky to have two particularly strong arms vying for the quarterback position, giving us the capability of adjusting our game play to the competition as we faced it. For my part, I settled into a role on the offensive and defensive lines and learned to embrace my mouth guard (thoughtfully provided by Panhell).
In middle school three-on-three basketball tournaments, I had a history of winning the prize for best uniform year after year. This gives me the confidence to say that even if our blocking could have used improvement, no one topped our t-shirts on Sunday. Our team was dressed entirely in black, with a snappy hot pink football helmet gracing the front of our uniform tee. Even our coaches donned deltas for the day.
Long story short we played hard, picking up numerous scratches and bruises along the way, without regard for the fact that in just a few hours we would be dressing up for formal.
Next year, if Tri Delt can avoid a similarly devastating first-round opponent, we will hopefully finish much higher up in the rankings. We'll recruit a bigger roster and make sure everyone knows the plays inside and out. We'll start practice in late March and institute early-morning group lifts five times a week. We'll cut the sleeves off all of our shirts. And sisters will start drinking Muscle Milk by the gallon in lieu of Diet Coke okay, maybe not that.
