Horton Heard a Hoo

Well, the Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup last night, and with a flair and a flourish. It's taken this team 39 years to reach this ultimate moment, and they have plenty of cause to celebrate. I lingered after the game to share in their jubilation. That's how I learned about Horton's contribution to the effort. Nathan Horton had been sidelined early in the series by an injury. Still, he wanted to do his part, apparently.

"It wasn't my idea, but I did it," he said to the newsman with a glimmer of triumph in his voice.

At first I didn't know what he was talking about. But a pre-game clip showed Horton surreptitiously pouring some water onto the Vancouver ice. It seemed he had scraped some Boston Garden ice into his Gatorade bottle, flown it to British Columbia, and then emptied it out onto the rink just before this decisive Game 7 got underway.

But why? That's what the interviewers and viewers wanted to know, if they hadn't figured it out already.

"We wanted to put our ice on their ice and make it our ice,” Horton explained.

I heard him tell this a few times to different interviewers from difference stations. Each time he used the same words: "We wanted to put our ice on their ice and make it our ice.”

Cool. Very cool. I like the line of thinking. I liked the energy, the creativity of it. Did it make a difference? Did it in fact help win the game?

In the world of energy, there's no limit to what one particle, one drop, one thought can hold. When that water hit the rink, it carried Horton's intention with it. Did it transform the Vancouver ice--like fairy dust turns pumpkin to coach, tatters to ball gown, dross to gold--just like that?

Who can say for certain. All I know is Horton heard a 'hoo' and followed it. And come to think of it, the Bruins kind of looked like they were playing a home game. And...well anyway, the rest, as they say, is history.