STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
For the first time in the team's 52-year history, the St. Louis Blues are the Stanley Cup champions. St. Louis Public Radio's Rachel Lippmann has the reaction from St. Louis.
(CHEERING)
RACHEL LIPPMANN, BYLINE: Game 7 was in Boston, but the 19,000 fans who watched on the scoreboard at the Enterprise Center, where the Blues play their home games, were beside themselves as the last seconds ticked away. The crowd included Dan Egly and his 12-year-old son Joe. Egly used to ride his bike to watch games at the old arena, buying tickets with money he'd made mowing lawns. He says watching the team raise the Cup brought him to tears.
DAN EGLY: I mean, I've been waiting 47 years for this. I started playing hockey when I was 5 years old, been coming to Blues games since I was 6. And heartbreak after heartbreak after heartbreak every year, but we keep coming back. We finally got this thing done.
LIPPMANN: Joe Egly was also having trouble grasping the moment.
JOE EGLY: I didn't even think we could get here. It just never happens in St. Louis.
LIPPMANN: That disbelief is understandable. Blues fans, like Katie Feldmeier, came into the season with high hopes.
KATIE FELDMEIER: And then opening night happened, and that was rough.
LIPPMANN: The Blues lost that first game of the season 5-1. At the start of January, they were in last place. It was in the midst of an 11-game winning streak in late January and early February that Feldmeier's optimism came back.
FELDMEIER: They reeled me back in. I was like, all right, let's do this. Let's go plan a parade.
LIPPMANN: With the victory in Game 7 on Wednesday, the Blues became the first team since the league expanded to 12 teams in 1967 to win the Stanley Cup after being in last place that late in the season. That parade is set for later this week.
For NPR News, I'm Rachel Lippmann in St. Louis.
(SOUNDBITE OF TELEVANGEL'S "STRIP MALL CHURCH") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
