Postcard from the Stanley Cup Finals
When the White Sox celebrated their 2005 World Series title in Houston, the experience felt both too intimate and too exclusionary.
The players' families couldn't fit into the crowded clubhouse to share the champagne. When the party moved to Minute Maid Park's infield, the stadium's enormity dwarfed the occasion.
Moreover, I remember Jermaine Dye's father and other parents watching from the infield dirt when the action centered around the mound. Maybe that's the right tack to take when your sons are a little older.
On the other hand, the youthful Blackhawks' postgame celebration in Philadelphia felt perfect.
Winning the Stanley Cup has been a lifelong dream and sacrifice for so many families - and the NHL got it right by allowing fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and sons and daughters to share the ice for an hour. Some of the scenes imprinted in my mind:
• Forward Kris Versteeg with his arms spread wide to hug his family.
• Defenseman Brent Sopel taking turns hoisting the 34-pound Cup with his children and his wife. Sopel's smile was just beautiful.
• Conn Smythe winner Jonathan Toews doing an interview and his mother, Andree, in her red Toews sweater stepping backward carefully on the ice in order to capture the whole scene on her camera.
What a pleasure to share a sense of their joy in the moments after their triumph.
lwillhite@dailyherald.com