I went to the Panthers victory parade on Sunday because I wanted a photo to post along with yesterday’s blog post and, like the man in the John Malcolm Brinnin essay “Travel and the Sense of Wonder,” I “like to see life happening.”
Hania dropped me off at the foot of the Intracoastal bridge on Sunrise, as at that point people on foot, many wearing red Panthers jerseys, were making better progress than those in cars. I walked to Riomar Street, the start of the parade, but at 8:15 not a lot was happening. I headed to El Vez and found a seat outside where I ate a plate of huevos rancheros. I figured I’d need some nourishment for the morning’s ordeal.
Back at Riomar, a bagpiper in a green plaid kilt and a black-and-green Panthers jersey was playing a tune by a parked car. Two drummers stood nearby; they were from the Coral Springs Fire & Rescue. More musicians, and people, gathered at the intersection, and then everyone dispersed as the heavens opened up. Many of us took shelter in the driveway of the Hilton, including a female drummer who told me several bands were marching. Hers, she said, had come up from Miami.
The rain let up and we wandered back to the intersection. Then more sheets were unleashed, and we raced back to the driveway. I charged my phone near a group of musicians whose armbands carried the name Palm Beach.
Eventually I worked my way, under cover, toward the front of the hotel, squeezing past a large potted plant whose purpose, clearly, was to keep me out. Outside Le Marché, I was told that I had entered a private party area, and politely asked to leave. I walked a few steps, in growing puddles, to a larger crowd waiting out the rain. Here I took pictures of two young men, in soaked Panthers jerseys, standing on the sea wall like sentinels. That, I thought would have to do.
But eventually the rain let up, and slowly, very slowly, buses rolled down A1A – first black-windowed coaches and then the big red double-deckers. I stood on the steps of the hotel portico, surrounded by a damp but cheerful crowd. On the step behind me, two Black teenage girls, in braces and cool wire-rim glasses, looked like they were getting a glimpse of Beyonce. A new bus appeared and the woman next to me yelled “Nick! Nick! Nick! Nick Cousins! He's our neighbor!” A few minutes later her husband appeared, his glasses speckled with raindrops. “I saw him look at you!” the woman shouted. “This is the happiest day of my life since we got married!”
Players threw beach balls into the crowd, which were then batted back. Some spectators tossed their cellphones up for players to take their pictures on. After obliging, the players let the phones drop back down.
Finally, the bus carrying the Stanley Cup appeared. Three players stood at the front in red “Conquered the Hunt” T-shirts: the one in the middle held the Cup high, the one on his left, Aleksander Barkov, help up his shoe (backdropped by the Finnish flag), the one on his right drank from his shoe. The blond woman standing next to Cousins’ neighbor asked, “Is that a thing in Finland?”
The other people on the bus had their cameras and smartphones pointed at the trio, creating a giddy Washington-crossing-the-Delaware tableau.
I wasn’t sure yet, but I figured I had my photo. And, even with the rain – heck, partly because of it – I had seen life happening.
South Florida’s sports teams, like its bad drivers, are shared by three counties – but there are degrees of affiliation. The Heat are Miami’s team, playing downtown on Biscayne Blvd. The Panthers, on the other hand, play in Sunrise and practice in Holiday Park, in a beautiful facility that on playoff nights became a surrogate arena, its restaurant and rink awash with fans – some homegrown, others nostalgic northern transplants. Broward is, inarguably, South Florida’s hockey heartland (as incongruous as that title may sound). So it was entirely fitting – in an even greater height-of-absurdity way – that the team whose home ice is next to the Everglades paraded the Stanley Cup on Fort Lauderdale Beach.
Weeks ago I bought tickets for Opera Aria Night, part of the Miami Beach Classical Music Festival, not realizing that it would mean missing the U.S.-Panama match at Copa America and the first presidential debate.
As soon as the concert was over I checked my phone and saw a message from my friend Ardy: “Biden is doing as poorly as the US soccer team did today.”
The arias were divine.
Eric Weiner spoke at Books & Books last night about his new book, Ben & Me, an unconventional biography of Benjamin Franklin. Each chapter title consists of an adjective followed by the word “Ben”: “Resting Ben” “Bookish Ben” “Wandering Ben”. For Miami, Eric read from the chapter “Naked Ben.”
I was surprised to see a small line outside Greek Islands last night – at 6 pm on a Tuesday in summer? – and nothing but empty tables in the back room.
“It’s closed for a private reception,” the hostess told us, as she directed us to the line.
“The Panthers?” I said jokingly.
“Yes,” she said. “Don’t say anything.”
But everyone knew, or sensed, that something was up, especially as black SUVs pulled in and deposited tall, well-built men in beards. Our friend Joe arrived – in a FLORIDA HOCKEY T-shirt, appropriately – and we took an outside table, one of the last, under covering and next to the window. On the other side of the glass a tub of bottles – Stella, Mythos, Panna – sat atop a table.
Word came that the team would arrive in full around 7:30. I told everyone to eat slowly – not a problem for me since my surgery. More rock-solid young men appeared, often accompanied by attractive young women. We had difficulty identifying the former.
“Maybe if they pinned somebody against the boards,” Joe said. “Oh yea, that’s Reinhart.”
Through the glass we could see what looked like a cocktail party for the genetically blessed. Eventually, the tub of bottles was removed, and the table set up for dinner. A couple sat down; the man wore a checked shirt, his long brown hair pulled back to produce what looked like seams on his temples. He had a sharp nose and a somewhat soulful expression.
“I think that’s Bobrovsky,” Joe said. And indeed it was. Hania – who had already told me that bóbr in Polish means “beaver” – googled and announced that the woman was Olga, his wife of 13 years. They were inches away from us, separated only by a plate of glass.
I resolved not to look at him. I tried to appear like an ordinary citizen enjoying his gyro, which I was until this feast of champions materialized out of nowhere. I did watch, out of the corner of my eye, when teammates, or wives of teammates, came up to greet him; often he’d half rise – he’s a tall man – for a warm embrace. Then he’d return to his wife and his dinner. It was strange to think that this man sitting quietly on the other side of the glass had, 20 hours earlier, been sprawled on the ice a few miles away in desperate attempts to keep a puck from entering a net. In Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals. He sat with the sage contentment of a man who had experienced not only triumph, but a brush with its opposite.
Around 8 o’clock another black SUV pulled into the parking lot, and quickly became the focus of attention for the tables of al fresco diners and the small band in Panthers jerseys that had assembled. The trunk was opened and another giant, in T-shirt and shorts, delicately extricated the desired hardware from the back. Then Aleksander Barkov carried the Stanley Cup into the dining room. “It doesn’t get any lighter,” he said to no one in particular.
The restaurant erupted in cheers. He lingered a while in the front room, as people took pictures, then he carried the Cup to the players who had won it. At first, it was filled – probably with beer – and drunk from by teammates and their wives. Then it was cleaned, and filled again – this time with juice perhaps – and given to children. It was the NHL’s version of Holy Communion, the high (tall) priests dipping the 34-pound cup so the young could partake of its nectar.
Finally, it was placed on a bar chair for endless photos avec: Greek Islands staff – our favorite waitress Monika giving the V sign – police officers, friends. Now it was the people’s time to celebrate. I had always heard about the powerful pull that the Stanley Cup has, and here it was visible, and also explainable. Because it's so generously shared with the public, the public gets not only to rejoice in the victory (over and over) but to feel a small part of it – to have a moment with the glittering prize that will not be forgotten. And the team’s choice of locales for the Cup – the Elbo Room, Ann’s Florist & Coffee Bar, Greek Islands Taverna – is making that feeling of connection even more real.
And the Panthers even more loved.
I didn’t think the Panthers would win last night. Yes, they were playing at home, but they had recently lost at home. The Oilers had the momentum. Also, the Panthers, I believed, were playing under a curse. Before every game there was a pregame show that, here in South Florida, preempted Jeopardy!. This enraged the Jeopardy! gods, the greatest of whom, Alex Trebek, was a Canadian.