Growing up, I lived across the street from an elderly woman, Minnie. She was the stereotypical “old lady” who just didn’t like kids in a neighborhood just crawling with kids. Frankly, we were all a little afraid of this large, scary woman who really didn’t like us. My family moved to the neighborhood when I was 4, and for the next 6-years I pretty much lived in fear of this woman.
1980 saw the US Olympic Men’s Hockey team defeated the heavily favored Soviet team to advance to play for the gold medal – “Do you believe in miracles?” At age 10, I had no idea what had happened, but I knew it was something big. Jim Craig, the US Goalkeeper, was from Massachusetts and was a bit of a crush for Minnie. To this day, I have no idea how I came to be in her favor, but it was like a thaw had occurred. She began to share with me her significant collection of Sporting News back-issues, and fostered in me a love of the Boston Bruins. What a pair we must’ve been – the elderly shut-in and the junior high student standing together on her front porch, with nothing apparently in common, talking about the Bruins.
I don’t think I ever learned the origin of this love of hockey – whether it was simple infatuation with the hometown hero or if it went back to a childhood in the Canadian Maritime Provinces – but it was real and it was genuine. She taught me to love Rick Middleton and Terry O’Reilly…and the Bruins.
She did not live to see the 1987-1988 Stanley Cup Finals, and perhaps it is just as well given the way her beloved Bruins fell to the Oilers, in 4 ½ games. With the arena air-conditioning battling to control the rising temperature, the electric system in the Boston Garden became overtaxed and ultimately failed. The 3-3 game was canceled in the second period. In the next game, the Oilers won their 4th Stanley Cup on home ice.
I thought about her the day of Game 7 of the 2010-2011 Stanley Cup finals. I can picture her large frame in a drab housecoat and slippers cheering on Tim Thomas, Shawn Thornton, David Krejci, Zdano Chara, Milan Lucic, and Mark Recchi, although I can also imagine her sometimes ribald commentary about how to actually pronounce some of the names and asking “exactly what is a ‘Canuck’ anyway?” There might even be a play on the phonemes that the slang for “Canadian” and the slang for carnal activity share in common, although I cannot say for certain. I got to share a bond with this woman in a way that I think she had not allowed herself to share with anyone in a very long time.
So here’s to that elderly woman, long since deceased who was doubtlessly cheering on the Black and Gold “B.” Godspeed Minnie, and God Bless.
VIDEO:
Game 4 1987-1988 Stanley Cup Finals: http://youtu.be/7yTVfJNQQiw
Mo's Marketplace 
Isn’t it interesting how a current event triggers a thought from long ago? … and I imagine this tribute caused Minnie to smile.
She was a trip. In my mind’s eye I can still see her on the porch, wearing her housecoat, wagging that fist at the neighborhood kids. Something softened her up – I wish I knew what.