BEING A SECOND-GENERATION BLUES FAN

by Harbor Wolff

We all know what it is like to lose. Some of us know what it is like to lose a lot. Then there are the Blues fans. Ne’er has there been a more aptly named team. Hell, we even have “lose” in our name. I have been watching the Blues ever since I was a baby. One of my family photos is of two-year-old Harbor on my father’s shoulder wearing a kid’s blues jersey with the caption: “Harbor’s first game!” Once I had reached a reasonable age of sentience, I began to actively follow the Blues. However, it wasn’t until I was old enough to really get into hockey that I began to unravel just exactly what it meant to be a Blues fan.

My father was born before the Blues were created in 1967. He was raised in the Lou, and still lives here today. He has been a Blues fan forever, and is the reason I began to play and follow ice hockey. He would never dazzle younger me with grand illusions of winning the big prize, Lord Stanley’s Cup, and seemed almost apathetic to our hometown heroes, despite frequently going to games and watching them play on TV. When he decided I was old enough to learn the harsh truth of the Saint Louis Blues, he began to integrate anecdotes into our regular “hockey talk”. The first instance of his preaching I can remember was when I went to a game where they were giving out little posters of Erik Johnston, our 1st round draft pick and (supposéd) star defenseman. When I expressed joy at the prospect of owning an image of a soon-to-be Blues legend, my father laughed and said, “don’t get too attached”. He was right. A few years later, Johnston had been traded away for piecemeal and was never heard of again.

In fact, I remember something like this happening with our ex-NFL team, the Rams. I went to a training camp where some players were signing stuff, and I had the whole team sign a program for me. When I returned home showing off my prize and talking of selling the autographs for big money, my father was only amused: “Sell that? Maybe for ten cents!” I still have the program today, and now it serves more as a relic of another era than something of actual value.

My father eventually told me true and painful stories of why the StL Blues are never to be trusted, no matter how good they look. In our inaugural season, we made it all the way to the Cup finals just to be swept by the Red Wings. Even when we won our conference or were the ’00 President’s Trophy winners, we always fell apart by the end. Even when we nabbed the greatest hockey player of all time, Wayne Goddamn Gretzky, we STILL lost in 2OT in the finals. Ironically enough, Gretzky’s horrific turnover cost us that game and the Cup. My neighbor and high school friend of my father, Tom, once told me a story about him. At a game they both attended, the Blues goalie (Jaroslav Halak maybe?) let in the worst goal they had ever seen. The building was absolutely silent. The only sound that could be heard was my dad’s voice screaming, “HALAK! YOU’RE THE GOALIE! THE PUCK IS SUPPOSED TO HIT YOU!”

It is around this time that I decided I needed another team to follow, and the natural choice was the Pittsburgh Penguins. I chose them because of their amazing goalie, Fleury, or their young roster, right? No. I was more interested in the cute bird that was on their sweaters. Give me a break: I was eleven. I coincidentally began following them religiously in the same year the won a Cup, 2016. I remember I was in a crappy motel in Oregon at the time, watching the game on a television that seemed like it was from the ‘60s. Of course, I receive so many accusations of being a bandwagon, I almost felt relieved when they were knocked out of the race by the eventual Cup winning Capitals. The Blues drove me into the arms of another team, but I eventually came back. Today, I follow both the Blues and the Penguins constantly.

My father doesn’t get this from himself, however. Despite how bemoaning of the Blues he may sound, my grandfather was worse. My mother, a passive hockey fan and still erroneously possesses some degree of confidence in our boys, refused to watch sports with him. She said he had a nasty habit of claiming that our team “wasn’t even trying to win”. Although he didn’t live long enough for me to encounter this behavior, I understand why he felt that way. At times, when I see Robert Bortuzzo or Jay Bouwmeester fall apart defensively, it feels like they are doing it just to make me sad. Other times they do good things to make me sad. I told my father once, “Schwartz looks like a peewee out there. I want to see him scratched and have Blais called up”. Schwartz proceeded to score a hat trick during the next game. Mean.

It’s this pessimistic attitude and eternal doubt that the elder Blues fans pass on to the ignorantly hopeful younglings. My father instilled the constant fear in me, and it has changed how I view hockey. I remember, more recently, our team’s fan-favorite goalie and long loved guy, Brain “Moose” Elliot, was due to be traded. I was at his last appearance for the Blues. We were sad to see him go, but the promise of his apprentice, Jake “The Future” Allen, playing in net was enough for ol’ Doug Armstrong to send Moosey on his way. Any Blues fan reading this just shuddered, as Jake Allen is a bit of a taboo name nowadays. But I digress; Jake stepped up to the plate (rather, the crease) and preformed impressively. He looked like he was using cheat codes. Unbelievable save after unbelievable save brought us all the way to the second round of the playoffs, where the door was slammed in our faces by the Nashville Predators. Our amazing goalie? Jake “The Future is Now” Allen turned back into a pumpkin once the clock struck midnight on our hopes and dreams. He quickly became a name to be cursed by all Blues fans due to his impressive ability to dodge every puck headed his way, and the Blues failed to even make the playoffs in the following year.

I, unfortunately, have inherited this pessimism, but I still maintain a bit of my childish hope. Over the summer, two big headlines appeared for the Blues. We had picked up the amazing Ryan O’Reilly for nearly nothing, and our old friend who had been snatched away by the expansion draft, David Perron, was to return to the ex-Scottrade center. I said to my father, “We gotta buy lots of tickets this season, this might be our year.” He gave me the angry look of ‘don’t even think that’ and agreed that we should make an effort to see more games this year.

When the Blues were in last place in the league this December, I told my father, “well maybe next year”. He surprised me and said, “It is still a long time before the playoffs. Wait and see.” Then a miracle happened. The abusive Jake Allen was finally deposed. I was at the historical game when Jordan “Binky” Binnington made his first home-ice start. My reaction was simply, “Binnington? Who the hell is that? Do British people even play hockey?” Equipped with the gift of modern knowledge, I wish to retract that statement as Binnington went on to carry the Blues all the way from last possible place in the entire league to second in our division going into the playoffs. We once again looked like contenders.

Right before the playoffs started, my father and I read an article in our favorite Blues sports magazine Saint Louis Gametime that talked about the superstition of Blues fans. Besides mentioning everything I have said (the torture of being a Blues fan, the ever-present doubt, etc.), they mentioned the superstition of hockey fans and players. We are a crazy lot. Tom once didn’t throw his hat on the ice for a hat trick goal, and ever since then has refused to wear it to games as it is “bad luck”. I worry constantly that I am in a state of Schrödinger’s hockey: where if I don’t check the Blues game they have both won and lost and it is only when I do look at the final score that it is revealed they choked an easy win.

The article talked about the number one no-no of hockey: jinxing outcomes. They used the analogy of a butterfly.

When you are attempting to sneak up on and capture an elusive butterfly, you must

proceed slowly and cautiously. If you jump too quickly and too early, you’ll scare the

butterfly away.

When my sister obliviously remarks “Oh this will be an easy win” I deflate entirely, mournfully explaining to her that the mere action of producing that thought has now cost the Blues that win. When I get wrapped up in an intense game, I find my mind wandering towards the luscious thoughts of Patty M and Binky raising the Cup above their heads. I immediately purge these thoughts from my head. The hockey gods are vengeful beings who punish mercifully all those who display such mortal hubris by challenging the pre-determined outcome of any event.

This has become the warning sign in my household. When, for example, my father texted my excitedly about the Blues pulling off an upset against a better team I angrily replied “You’ll scare the butterfly!” This only adds to the already concerning levels of paranoia I suffer from. After Jake Allen so cruelly abused my fragile emotions, every puck sent towards our net makes me cringe. Even when we have a massive lead on the competition, I worry that we will “go full Blues” and choke away victory.

Now we are at a crucial point in what could possibly be “our season”, and I’m scared. It is looking like our next competitor will be the Dallas Stars, who have thoroughly whooped us in our last few meetings. Not only that, but my experience will Allen has caused me to suspect Binky will break down any second now. Our top line, bless their souls, has been struggling for a while now to produce as a top line should. Our defense only shows up to play hockey in half the games. I still think Schwartz plays like a peewee. But Binky hasn’t slowed or even shown any signs of deterioration, our second and third lines are massive studs, and Schwartz made me eat my words last night by sending the Jets back to Winnipeg prematurely. Maybe this is our season. Maybe we will get swept by the Stars in a week. This is what it is like to be a second-generation Blues fan: youthful innocence and optimism kept in check by the wisdom of our grizzled elders who insist nothing will come of this team. My heart races with excitement everytime I hear we have broken another record this season, but I still brace myself whenever the puck crosses our defensive blue line. All I know for sure is that if I jump too soon, I will scare the butterfly away.