'Gloria' rules airwaves like Blues in NHL

Hockey may never enjoy the foothold in these United States once belonging to baseball and now to football, but its impact on popular music lately rivals that of "American Bandstand."

The newly crowned Stanley Cup champion St. Louis Blues have done more than rejuvenate a fan base jilted twice by NFL teams and recently disappointed by the baseball Cardinals. National Hockey League kingpins for the first time, the Blues have transformed the late singer Laura Branigan into a latter-day Kate Smith.

Smith, with her signature recording of "God Bless America" played before each Flyers home game, might as well have had her name etched on the Stanley Cup in Philadelphia's back-to-back championship seasons in the 1970s. Branigan's early-1980s hit "Gloria" received similar air play during the Blues' improbable run to the title, one that St. Louis clinched two nights before Flag Day in America.

Ironically, "Gloria" received its current cult status with help of a Philadelphia resident, one that the hometown Inquirer calls "the hottest DJ in St. Louis even though he doesn't live in St. Louis, has never been to St. Louis and, come to think of it, really isn't even a DJ."

A salesman from south Philly, Matt Cella (pronounced "Chella") spins records at a local club and served up the request of some visiting Blues players during the club's January visit to the City of Brotherly Love. The Blues then had the worst record in the Western Conference. That the club would make the playoffs, let alone hoist the cup, was no more than a dream, like that of the song's main character about an imaginary woman called Gloria.

In 2003, a year before her premature death at age 52, Branigan characterized "Gloria" as "certainly my signature song. And I always get the same reaction wherever I go, and whenever I perform it. ... I have to end every show with that song, and people just go crazy."

"Gloria," I feel sure, played long into the night back in St. Louis, which received an NHL expansion franchise in 1967 and suffered through 13 consecutive losses in the Stanley Cup Finals until this year.

The hometown fans watched at Enterprise Center, the club's home arena, or at Busch Stadium, with the Cardinals out of town, as St. Louis won the Game 7 clincher 4-1 at Boston. Rookie goaltender Jordan Binnington kept Boston scoreless until the Bruins pulled their goalie for an extra attacker.

Ryan O'Reilly received the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoffs MVP, the first such St. Louis honoree since legendary goaltender Glenn Hall in a losing cause in 1968. O'Reilly tied Wayne Gretzky's record of scoring a goal in four straight finals games, preventing a Blues shutout in Monday's 5-1 Game Six home loss with the Stanley Cup in the building. O'Reilly apologized for dropping an "F-bomb" on the air after Game Seven, although his interviewer said "I've heard that word before in hockey."

And thus ended a decade of improbable NHL champions, Chicago winning in 2010 after 44 years, Boston in 2011 after 39 seasons, Los Angeles in 2012 after 44 campaigns and Washington in 2018 after 43 failures. Blessed are the long suffering for they, too, shall claim the Stanley Cup.

Pro basketball stood ready to crown a first-year champion Thursday night when Golden State played host to Toronto in Game Six of the NBA Finals. The Raptors could become the first Canadian world champion in a big-four sport since the 1993 Toronto Blue Jays downed the Philadelphia Phillies in a six-game World Series. Hockey has become so Americanized that no Canadian club has won the Stanley Cup since the '93 Montreal Canadiens, who once ruled the sport like the Yankees in baseball.

The Raptors, who let the title slip through their hands before their home fans in Game Five Monday night, could cap a decade that Dallas and Cleveland won its first NBA world titles and Golden State its first in 40 years.

Baseball, once truly the national pastime, has sold out to the home run and perhaps needs another deadball era like that before Babe Ruth. But in this decade, baseball's meek have been inheriting the earth, San Francisco winning the World Series for the first time since 1954 and Kansas City for the first time since 1985. That's nothing compared to the feel-good stories emanating from Chicago and Houston in recent years, the 2017 Astros ruling the world for the first time since their 1962 inception as Colt-45s.

As for the sport's longest-standing loser, since 1908, the 2016 Cubs walked on the moon the same year that Donald Trump was elected president of these United States. Even if the Cubs don't win again until 2124, we'll see about Trump in 2020.

Sports on 06/14/2019

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