Paul Maurice: At Long Last, A Stanley Cup Champion

SUNRISE — Paul Maurice said he fell in love with hockey as a kid growing up in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

On Saturday night, if he was not playing hockey, his mother would make a big pot of spaghetti or chili and the Maurice family would settle in for an evening of Hockey Night in Canada.

“You knew you were getting older because you could make it to the third period,’’ Maurice said. “That’s the way it was. My mom would make popcorn with a half-pound of butter. The half-glass of Coke you got was smeared with butter, there was salt everywhere. You’d get up the next morning and eat the rest of what dad didn’t eat. That’s what I remember about growing up. And it was hockey Saturday night.”

After a lifetime of watching, playing or coaching the game he loves so much, Paul Maurice finally reached the pinnacle on Monday night.

At long last, Maurice got to grab hold of the Stanley Cup and lift it over his head.

It will likely be one of the more memorable snapshots of a night full of them.

“I did not know this when I got asked at the start of this whole this and said, ‘I need one, I’ve got to win a Stanley Cup’,’’ Maurice said in his postgame press conference early last Tuesday morning.

“There are a whole bunch of things you don’t know until you get there. You don’t win a Stanley Cup. I didn’t win the Stanley Cup tonight. I get to share it.’’