Phew. What a week. And oh, what a night.
Never in my wildest dreams could I have come up with last night's scenario when I was assigned to do feature stories for away games during the Stanley Cup final series. I mean, come on, win it in seven, and on the road?!
I had two moments to breathe during the Stanley Cup final -- saw the fabulous Pixar film "Up" and the touring company of "Legally Blonde" -- but mostly, it was all Detroit, because I was the road writer, and all Penguins. A friend e-mailed me about being at the Benedum Center during the performance of "Legally Blonde" while Game 7 was being played. She wrote:
"I was in attendance at Legally Blonde last night with my parents. There was a buzz and score updates during intermission. The lead did her curtain call in a Pens' jersey - the crowd went wild. We left the theater and while we were walking to the parking lot, one woman was on phone counting down the time left in the third period - the pens were up 2-1. Apparently, lots of theatergoers were getting cell phone alerts - everyone cheered loudly at once - it was fun!"
Coolest part of covering the game, literally, was that post-game interviews were conducted on the ice at the Joe, after the players, execs, staff and their families had 20 minutes of their own celebration. It was surreal, and not as slippery as I thought. I wished I was on skates while trying to dash from Crosby, to Talbot, to Fedetenko and then back to the media-room deadline scramble, but mostly, I loved watching the players grab family members and children to share in their great moment. There were babies who will never remember being placed gently in the Cup on their father's big night, but there were tons of cameras at the ready to record those Ann Geddes moments for posterity.
I made a stupid mistake near the end of my story, but I'm pleased to say that Bill Guerin has lots of fans watching out for him, and they called me on it. I had him when the Cup previously with Dallas, when of course it was with New Jersey. Five e-mailers were mostly polite in pointing out the error, and we fixed it quickly online.
Other than bashing myself about that, it was good to step back into that world for a while. But I'm glad to leave it to pros like Dave Molinari. Those 8 p.m. starts are a killer for writing on deadline.
Posted
Jun 13 2009, 10:09 PM
by
Sharon Eberson