from the CP at TSN,

Stanley Jackson and buddy Steven Crow can be excused if they tend to watch their beloved St. Louis Blues with their hands over their eyes, just waiting for the next thing to go wrong.

So when the Blues beat the San Jose Sharks in Game 7 to earn their first berth in the Stanley Cup Final since 1970, a rematch with the Boston Bruins 49 years in the making, the two old friends couldn't hold back.

"We were like two 9-year-olds," Jackson, 52, said. "We were hugging and jumping. We were crying like babies."

There's a lot of that going around in St. Louis. After all, few sports fans anywhere have suffered like Blues fans.

The franchise has shown a remarkable ability to tease but ultimately disappoint — missing the playoffs just nine times but never winning the Cup. Management lost three coaches who went on to win 16 Stanley Cup championships. The Blues would have abandoned St. Louis in the 1980s but the new destination was a Canadian outpost so obscure the NHL wouldn't allow it.

It's been a wild ride, and Susan Kelly has had a front-row seat.

Kelly, a 55-year-old lawyer, is the daughter of Dan Kelly, the legendary hockey broadcaster who called Blues games until his death in 1989.

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