The Thrill of Victory

I remember well the opening minute of the program called 'Wide World of Sports" which aired in the 1970's.  It showed various random video clips of athletes successes and failures.  As the announcer introduced the show, he summarized it all with the phrase - 'The Thrill of Victory, and the Agony of Defeat'.  For me, this one statement tells a lot about human nature.  No human in their right mind desires defeat.  Defeat sickens the stomach of the loser, yet, we constantly put ourselves in the position of potential defeat.  Why is this?  I think the answer lies in the first half on the above statement - The Thrill of Victory.

I have been a Vancouver Canucks fan since the 1970's which means I have mostly experienced agonizing defeat.  Oh yes there has been the occasional  thrill of Victory(the 1982 and 1994 cup runs), but not the ultimate thrill of actually winning the Stanley Cup.  Why do I, like the many hundreds of thousands of Canucks fans around the province of B.C. put themselves through this agony every year.  Perhaps the The Thrill of Victory can help us to answer this.

Last night, as I watched the Canucks life almost slip away, the agony was intense, but then, in the blink of an eye, when Alex Burrows ended the game and series with his amazing overtime goal, the thrill of victory washed over me and all the Canuck faithful.  There is nothing like this experience.  It made all the agony worth it.  In fact, it was the agony that made the thrill so great.

Most things in life are like that.  If something is hard, then it is probably worth doing.  Living out our catholic faith the way our Lord intended us to live it out is hard.  There is much agony and even many defeats, but the Thrill of Victory that awaits us when we meet him, will infinitely surpass anything we can experience here on Earth, even beating the Stanley Cup Champion Chicago Black Hawks in overtime of game seven.

Hey Canuck fans, try and imagine what awaits us.  The victory last night gave me a taste but I can't even come close to imagining it.  One thing that is for sure, I do know that I want it.

Our Lady of Victory, Pray for us.