McDonald’s is using their marketing tools 🔧to promote the current World Cup, and anyone who reads my stuff knows that I’m a sucker for marketing! The Cup shown above came from the local McDonald’s this morning 🌄.

Now that UNC has finished off West Virginia in the college World Series, a quick flip of the channels takes us to Game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals. Note – it’s a great day to be a fan of teams from Carolina as the Hurricanes 🌀 are 20 minutes away from clinching the Cup over Las Vegas.

Back in 1994, before the National Hockey 🏒 League was still very, very affordable, and when you are raising small children without much money 💰, affordable is an Awesome thing !!!

Our three younger children grew up on Vancouver Canucks hockey. We could cross the Border and watch a game and return home for less than what one ticket costs today.

Pavel Bure and Trevor Linden were two of the stars 🌟 for our home team, and in 1994, we were ready for a serious run at winning Lord Stanley’s Cup.

Lin and I were able to attend at least one game in each round of the playoffs, right up until we faced the New York Rangers in the finals. To this day, I am still convinced that the finals that year were one of the greatest of All-Time. Mark Messier guaranteed the New York Rangers would end their drought by winning game six and seven.

It’s worth noting 📝 that another New York team just now ended a historic drought. The photo 📸 above of Messier holding the Cup still stings a bit, even today. Mess is in the middle of the coverage in the other pic up top.

We knew that we could see a Finals involving the Canucks sometime soon. Then we signed Mess as a free agent, and it was going to happen REAL SOON ! His Canucks Captains jersey is the only authentic one of the 40 in my closet.

Fast forward 17 years and the Canucks finally made it back into the Cup Finals and this time it was against one of the other Glorious teams, the Boston Bruins.

One night, after working all night, I drove from Luray, Virginia, to the parking lot of the Boston Garden. Slept in the car 🚗, woke up, and had $400.00 in my pocket. To this day, it’s the only time I spent ” real $$$” to attend any sporting event. If $400 didn’t get me in, I would be watching from a sports bar across the parking lot.

Bobby Orr was in the building, and the atmosphere was beyond description. It’s the most amazing place I can remember being involved in, and 15 years later, it still is. Boston won the game and the Cup days later, but I drove back to Luray with no regrets.

Bill ” Pappy ” Meade is the third brother that I never had and for days after the game, Pappy was still trying hard to console me about traveling all that way just to watch my team lose the game.

No matter how hard I tried to convince Pappy that I also lived in the Boston area twice and sometimes the event was greater than the outcome. I never got him to see the magnitude of the game or what it meant to me.

It’s time to bring this full circle 🔵 as Carolina just added an empty net goal, and the Cup is going to the Tar Heel state !

Here in a few days, my long-time and dear friend, Pappy, is going to board a flight ✈️ with his adult sons, Will and Tim. The trio is flying out to San Francisco and will be attending the Australia 🇦🇺 versus Paraguay 🇵🇾 World Cup match.

This trip makes me smile for a number of reasons. While I couldn’t convince Pappy what being in the arena for a Stanley Cup finals game back in the day, I fully understand what this trip will mean to Pappy.

Funny thing, Pappy, I know that you felt bad because you felt my team lost that day in the Garden. I laugh because at least I had a team in the game… Australia 🇦🇺 and Paraguay, really ? You either get it, or you don’t. The World 🌎 Cup is like the biggest thing in the world for 75% of the population.

I couldn’t be happier for my friend and his family, and I hope they have the trip of a lifetime !!!

Going the distance means different things to different people, and when you have a passion, you should chase it whenever you can.