Jubilance Reigns for My Old Hometown and My New Hometown

The police were there, but the crowd wasn't giving them much to do.

Last night, two great things happened within hours of each other for my adopted hometown and my place of birth: FC Barcelona, the city's beloved soccer team and standard-bearers for many a Catalan separatist, took down their bitter rivals, Real Madrid, to advance to the finals of the UEFA Champions League.  For the uninitiated (and I do not pretend to know very much about soccer, so I can but skim the surface here), the UEFA Champions League is the top trophy a European soccer club can win.

There was a healthy crowd on hand.

Some climbing was done

The celebrations here began around 10.30pm (22.30, for those of you inclined to 24-hour notation) and the din was so great that I began to wonder if the Blaugrana had in fact won the battle for Armageddon.  After 90 or so minutes of listening to the happy cries of Barca's faithful, I decided that this was a cultural event I would be poorer for missing.  So, I grabbed my camera and began walking the few blocks from our apartment to Plaza Catalunya, the spiritual heart of the city.  Along the way, I was passed by more than a few revelers and more than a few police officers.  For the most part, it was a relatively orderly gigantic celebration of nationalistic pride expressed as a soccer game, although the crowd was thick enough to prevent me from getting all the way up to Plaza Catalunya.

And, of course, the press was covering it all.

The celebration lasted well into the night.  For FC Barcelona to advance by way of defeating Real Madrid sent the city (and quite possibly all of Catalonia) into a frenzied celebration that lasted well into the night.  I should know; I was up until 4.00 in the morning local time watching the Lightning beat one of their biggest rivals, the Washington Capitals.

It's been seven long and mostly inglorious years since the Tampa Bay Lightning hoisted the Stanley Cup for the first (and, so far, only) time in their history.  They went through two ownership changes; Oren Koules and Len Barrie nearly destroyed the team to the extent that now I won't watch movie or television show produced by Oren Koules (of the Saw franchise and also a producer for the Charlie Sheen-torpedoed Two and a Half Men) before Jeff Vinik rode in and rescued the team from a becoming the Florida version of the New York Islanders--a fate worse than death.

In his first season of ownership, Vinik managed the twin coups of hiring Steve Yzerman away from the best organization in North American professional sports, the Detroit Red Wings, and plucking the hottest coaching prospect, Guy Boucher, right out from under the nose of the Montreal Canadiens several years before that organization thought he was ready for the NHL.  Yzerman and Boucher have proven themselves not only ready for the challenge of rebuilding (resurrecting?) a franchise, but turning that franchise into legitimate Stanley Cup contenders overnight.

The 4-3 victory over the Capitals on 3 May gives the Lightning a three games-to-none stranglehold on their Eastern Conference Semifinals that no one thought the Bolts were capable of pulling off, save for, perhaps, the Lightning themselves.  And while the Tampa Bay Lightning have by no means clinched their birth in the Eastern Conference Finals, they look well-positioned to be able to pound in the final nail on the coffin holding the hopes of the Capitals and their Stanley Cup aspirations.  The Bolts will hopefully do so either tonight or Saturday and not let the Capitals hang around long enough to get their confidence back.

It is, of course, impossible to predict where the Lightning's run will end, but if it ends with them hoisting the Stanley Cup, I may be as ebullient as the fans you see in the photos up top.  I'll try not to climb on any lampposts, though.

In a few days here, I'll post my thoughts on bin Laden's being killed that will probably burn a few bridges and lose some Facebook friends at the least.  Maybe by then we'll know the outcome of the Lightning's tussle with the Capitals.