State of Sadness

So last night the Vancouver Canucks lost game 7 to the Boston Bruins, thereby losing the Stanley Cup.

I'm obviously upset. They're my team, they're my boys. It physically hurt me to see their eyes well up with tears after the last buzzer, and I had to swallow a giant lump in my throat during the presentation of the Stanley Cup to a team that has disrespected us throughout this series and treated us like dirt.

It hurts. To tie it into something relevant to this blog, it feels like rejection. It feels like jumping through hoops for so long, making it past the query stage, then past the partial stage, then to the full stage, and then... not being good enough. The Canucks were number one league-wide almost all season, highest in points, Western Conference champions, Northwest Division champions, President's Trophy winners. We have a Vezina Trophy nominee, a Hart Trophy winner and nominee, a handful of new Hall of Fame inductees, and our head coach and general manager are all nominated for awards.

We won everything but the Stanley Cup. Every honor but the highest.

For a writer, this is like having a great manuscript that you love. You're ready to conquer the world. Someone, an agent or publisher, loves your query. Reads your manuscript. But... "It's just not there yet."

You spend forever thinking about your failure, dissecting every word in the rejection. Thinking about every move and how, maybe if you'd tied your left shoe first instead of your right that day, the outcome might've been different. You're thinking you're just not good enough.

Well, maybe you're not good enough -- yet.

The Canucks are going to take the summer off to chill, refocus, shoot pucks on their home rinks. It's not going to be easy for them, working their whole lives to get to that Stanley Cup game and losing it in front of their home crowd, but they will bounce back. They'll be even better next season.

And so you, writer, will be even better in your next manuscript.

With practice, we get better, whether we're talking hockey or writing. If you keep working, keep up that passion, being so close to achieving that goal -- whether it's a 'yes' from an agent or a Stanley Cup -- will happen again.

And next time? You're going to win it big.

P.S. - Me and mine are all safe after the riots in downtown Vancouver after the game. I'm trying to think of the words to describe my dismay and embarrassment after what happened. It's just ridiculous, and I just want to say that no true Canucks fan behaves like that.