I watched a hockey game (or any sports game for that matter) for the first time in a long time tonight. It happened to be game 5 of the Stanley Cup finals, double over time.

I forgot how mesmerizing it is to watch it. What these guys can do on ice is more than I could do on foot. Impressive.

Hockey is quite ruthless with scoring, which of course adds to the excitement. One goal and game over. For the LA Kings that meant a Stanley Cup Championship, for the NY Rangers, another chance tomorrow.

Then, fast as lightening, the Kings scored. Blink, and you’d have missed it. Game over.

The announcer surmised the scene best: “complete elation for one team, complete agony for the other.”

I am completely impartial to who wins, but I couldn’t help but feel more sorry for the Rangers than excitement for the Kings.

Most people think how great it would be to be a professional athlete. I think it would have to be quite miserable a lot of the time. These poor guys could spend everyday of their lives since they are 5 years old training, sweating, sacrificing, doing line drills, for the chance to play in the Stanley Cup Finals one day. But there’s a catch: everyone’s dream ends with them winning.

Nobody dreams of being a 2^nd string member of a hockey team, or making the finals and losing. That brings pain, not pleasure. To be so close to something you cannot touch isn’t the dream, that’s torture.

And without knowing much about anyone on the Rangers, I can imagine there’s many of them who fit this bill: training their whole life, dreaming of this moment, only with a different ending.

And maybe this is the closest they will get. I wonder, when they’re old in their rocking chair, telling their grandkids stories of “when grandpa was a kid”, will they feel joy and elation, or regret and sadness?

I fear it’s the latter.