The ascent is what gives meaning to the top. Just like getting dropped off a mountain top by a helicopter doesn’t bring the same sense of accomplishment as putting crampons on ice and pickax on stone, winning that first championship as a rookie doesn’t isn’t quite the same as earning it as a veteran. Years of despair feed the delight. Years of pain fuel pride. It’s John F. Kennedy’s “Not Because It’s Easy, But Because It’s Difficult”. It’s “The tough guy is what makes him great” by Jimmy Dugan.
It’s the blood, sweat, bumps, bruises, every blocked shot and every smear along the boards and every overlap in the crease and every face wash and every training exercise and every late night flight and every loss of punch and every win in the air and every summer minute spent in the gym. It’s what gives a player that indefinable look of delirium, exhaustion and satisfaction, tears mingling with sweat in a shaggy beard as he lifts the Stanley Cup above his head.
It’s long, it’s difficult, it’s exhausting and it’s scary. And the very real possibility that you will never reach that peak lingers in your mind throughout, eating away at your confidence and fueling or draining your desire to endure. Each training camp is accompanied by a deep breath and a “Here we go again”.
This is the climb. And the climb is the joy and the challenge and the thrill and all the interest of the sport. The climb is everything.
Until you hurtle down the entire mountain, look up and realize you have to start all over again.
For three glorious years, the Los Angeles Kings dominated the hockey world.
