The Stars have won eight games in the playoffs, which is just eleven games short of how many the Sharks won this entire season. It’s a huge accomplishment, one 27 teams never do every season. But it’s also a box the Stars have checked three times in the last four years in which a Western Conference existed, so I suppose their sights must be set higher. Eight wins is something, but it’s not what it used to be. Back in the day, legend has it, eight wins equaled a Stanley Cup championship, hence the Red Wings octopus.
But when I think of the number eight, I think of a lot of things.
I think of what it means to be eight, in Texas: you have to take the STAAR test, a reductive, dehumanizing standardized exam which has become the raison d’être for elementary education. Because of accountability ratings driving enrollment and attendance, and because of the backwards way in which Texas schools are funded (or not funded), these tests tend to be the focal point of all elementary education these days. How many children do you know that love to read? Ask a schoolteacher what their students have been doing since STAAR testing wrapped up earlier this spring, and you’ll likely get a harrowing account of Chromebook Time and other activities that have nothing to do with making our children into better people.
I think of the eighty-eight keys on a piano, and how I used to go to piano lessons with my sister in a house on a dirt road opposite a eucalyptus grove. If you’ve never walked in a eucalyptus forest, you don’t know what it’s like to feel those chalky leaves, or to snap off a strip of temping bark, all while fording a river of dessicated acorns and withered leaves. A eucalyptus grove rarely reveals the earth below it. Trees can be selfish.
I think of Francis Wathier, who wore 58 before Jordie Benn, and who played ten career NHL games across four seasons, amassing no points and one fight with Ian Schultz. I think of how much more of a shot Wathier got than countless others who never even tasted the show.
I think of #88, Eric Lindros, who could’ve been a twilight hero for Dallas in the 2007 playoffs, only to get eclipsed by everyone else, including Patrik Stefan. This was a player I had dearly loved as a child, but whose post-Stevens reality never could match up to his Philadelphia legend.
I think of the eighth win that eluded Dallas twice against St. Louis, both in 2016 and again in 2019, thanks to the cruel nature of the sport. How hollow I felt after 2016, and how that exhaustion combined with despair for the 2019 cocktail. And how 2020 came out of nowhere to brush both of those aside, to give John Klingberg one great postseason during his career.
I think of how Klingberg held out for an 8×8 deal instead of taking the (rumored) 7×8 deal that Dallas had offered. I think of how players are told what they “should” do by so many older and wiser people, and how tempting it is to hand the reins over to someone else rather than shouldering the burden of making those choices yourself. And how that mistake may well end up costing John Klingberg something like $50 million, and Peter Wallen his reputation. And I think about how I’m not exactly sure which one of those is more valuable.
When I think of the number eight, I think of Dallas finally reminding Tampa Bay that this isn’t 2020 anymore.
And I think of Golden-era Simpsons episodes, and how Conan O’Brien has become more beloved than any of his competition by virtue of adhering to his love of doing stupid in the smartest way possible.
And finally, when I think of the number eight, I think of Bill Goldsworthy. I think of the sad end to his life, and the isolating nature of terminal disease and domestic abuse. I think of how that jersey hangs in the rafters, and how so few fans can even picture Goldsworthy as anything but a short clip in a franchise highlight reel, while Goldsworthy knew the pain of divorce, alcoholism, relapse, and an ignominious diagnosis. I think of how Jamie Benn has sometimes done a sort of Goldy Shuffle after scoring, and how Goldsworthy was a linemate of Bill Masterton right before nobody was.
Hockey doesn’t promise a happy ending. It has a timer right up there above the ice, reminding us that all it does promise is that nothing ever lasts. But if you’re really lucky, you’ll have some great folks around you to enjoy the ride with you, and to help you back up when you need it, and how that really reminds you of what matters most, regardless of the score.
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NB: Bring on the Oilers. It wouldn’t be a worthwhile playoff run if Dallas didn’t spend some time winning games in Edmonton, after all.
Stars Thoughts: Robert Tiffin's attempt to understand the Dallas Stars and everything else 
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