Oh No

Subscribers to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s saw this in Sunday’s e-edition, hours before the Blues played ( and lost) Game 6. Science says there is now approximately a zero percent chance the Blues win the Cup.

Sunday’s edition featured a letter from majority owner Tom Stillman congratulating his team on its nonexistent Stanley Cup win, and thanking the city of St. Louis for its support throughout this extremely-not-over Cup run. There was also a post-championship ad for the sovereign state of Enterprise Rent-A-Car.

Stillman’s letter read, in part,

“Winning the Stanley Cup was a dream come true for so many of you. All of us will remember where we were, what we did and how we felt when the Blues brought the Cup home. Each of us will have a library of memories to pass down for generations,” wrote Stillman, who also looked “forward to celebrating with you as we parade the Cup down Market Street.”

Unsurprisingly, these were ads meant to run the next day—if the Blues won—or later in the week, if they win Game 7. The paper apologized for the mix-up.

(Calling the ads a sneak peek—implying they’re definitely going to run later—feels like layering a jinx on top of a jinx.)

The Blues’ history is filled with mediocrity—they’ve rarely been truly awful, and also have rarely been great. That’s its own kind of soul-crushing, but the franchise doesn’t really know the heartbreak of coming so close before failing. Frankly, that heartbreak builds character. If Boston wins Game 7 at home, the Blues will now have a curse to call their very own.