Several things make spring: flowers blooming, warm weather and the Blues early exit from the NHL Playoffs. Can we really call it early, though? Every year Blues fans go through the same thing–we make the playoffs and leave before the Stanley Cup Finals.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said it right yesterday, “Deja Blues.” Did we, as Blues fans, really kid ourselves into thinking the Blues would win this series, or even get a Stanley Cup? Like every year, they made bonehead plays, rarely got outplayed and were plagued with penalties.

This year, though, it seems unfair because of all the upsets in the Western Conference. We would have had home ice against Anehiem because the Ducks swept the Redwings and the Wild took out the Avalanche in seven. The Ducks swept Detroit! Was this possible? Does the flying V actually work? Maybe the Blues should get Gordon Bombay next season. Sorry coach Q, you cannot teach us to fly.

But we can dream all we want. They lost and will lose again, and should we be surprised? No. Absolutely not. Because being a Blues fan means coping with the blues.

In 1996, Grant Fuher goes down, and hope is gone forever–or is it? We had the Great One, Wayne Gretzkey and John Casey, Fuher’s replacement. Casey goes red hot, like he was just shot out of the center of the earth and destroyed a small Polynesian island. He made the Redwings look so bad that they would have defected back to Russia, but then … WHAP!

Red hot goes ice cold, and Casey’s career week sinks as Steve Yzerman blasts a slapshot from the blue line that barely goes in. Everyone who stayed up until 2:00 a.m. went to bed with their hearts sinking so low, they can’t pick up their right foot the next morning. The next thing we knew, Gretzkey used St. Louis as an extended layover between Los Angeles and New York, and Mike Kenan was still in charge.

In 1999, the Blues win the President’s Cup with the best record in the NHL. A bunch of young guys who had recently forgone college, grad school and jobs then decided to play hockey instead, took the fans of St. Louis on a wild ride all season, playing fun and exciting hockey. We were all sure we would go to the finals, we were number one; but we forget, we are the Blues.

This year, the Blues looked like the Chiefs, Paul Newman’s team in Slapshot, which was fun, but we didn’t win. They focused more on beating the snot out of a bunch of Canucks than scoring goals and winning.

To relate it to the only sport left in St. Louis, someone once told me, “Of course, the Cubs [stink]! If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be the Cubs.” Well it’s a sad day when a guy from St. Louis can relate to a Cubs fan (I can feel my grandfather rolling in his grave). However, I now know that in order to be a Blues fan, I just have to accept the fact that they’ll lose in the playoffs.

This doesn’t feel right, though. If the Rams can win the Super Bowl, the NHL can take teams from Winnepeg and Minnesota and move them to Phoenix and Dallas and the Cubs are in first place over the Cardinals, there is absolutely no reason why the Blues cannot break their chains of playoff bondage and head straight to the promised land and place Lord Stanley’s Cup right under the Arch. We need a goalie, leadership, to stay healthy and not take dumb penalties.

Eh, I said this last year about this time, I must be a Blues fan. Bring on next season!