How it went

We landed in Toronto around 11 p.m., got through customs and managed to kill two hours and decompress a bit before heading to Waterloo.

The airport is tiny, with just six gates in the terminal. We arrived at 2:15 a.m. and still had two hours before security opened and four hours until our flight. I wrote a Matthew Tkachuk story. He tried to get some sleep.

We said a few words to each other here and there at Waterloo, conversed a bit about what the Panthers needed to do to wrap up the series (in essence, start strong, Sergei Bobrovsky return to form, the stars — particularly the top line of Carter Verhaeghe, Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart — find another gear), but other than that it was mostly silence as the overnight adrenaline began to ween.

And then we boarded the WestJet flight to Calgary, and the juices began flowing again. A little more than four hours in the air without a hitch.

With another leg completed, the optimism rose. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation, us running on fumes (plus a kick of Tim Hortons coffee for me) after we should have been in Edmonton hours and hours earlier, but we couldn’t help but soak in the fact that, finally, we were almost there.

We got into Edmonton around noon local time after a three-hour Uber from Calgary.

Levine barely spoke during the ride. I wrote half of this story on my phone during the trek. We went our separate ways as we got dropped off at our hotels.

When we each made it to Rogers Place for the game — him sitting near the glass, me in the press box — the optimism from finally completing our journey carried into the arena.

The Panthers are getting this done.

And then the puck dropped.

And Florida got crushed, 5-1.

And like that, we were heading back to Sunrise not for a celebration, but for a winner-take-all Game 7 that felt unfathomable even a few days earlier.

“We went through hell for this...” Levine texted afterward.

Barely 17 hours after getting into Edmonton, I was on my way back to South Florida with another lovely 12-hour travel day — Edmonton to Vancouver to Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale.

(Folks, if you haven’t gotten the message already, don’t try traveling to Edmonton from Florida; it’s not fun.)

After a day of sleep, it was back to Amerant Bank Arena for Game 7 on Monday. Optimism shifted to nerves. A series the Panthers had completely in their hands appeared to have slipped away. The final blow felt inevitable.

We are at our spots. Him in seats by the glass. Me in the press box.

The score was tied after one period. Things were still tense. Florida went up 2-1 after the second period on a Sam Reinhart goal.

“OK,” I told myself. “This could be happening.”

And then the Panthers stayed true to their typical brand of lockdown defense in the third to hold off the Oilers.

The Panthers win, 2-1.

The Panthers are Stanley Cup champions.

After I get back up to the press box, I send Levine a text.

“They. Did. It.”

“We did it,” Levine responds.

How it’s going

Ever since the game ended Monday, Levine and I have been living up the Stanley Cup championship experience in our own ways.

I’ve finished chronicling the journey. He has celebrated almost as non-stop as the team has — even meeting up with them at the Elbo Room in Fort Lauderdale. He’s called the past week “a dream.”

Which, considering the nightmare we went through, the dream is well worth it.

The waves of emotions — from dejection to hope to numbness to jubilation (for him) and relief (for me) — are something neither of us will forget. It’s a story we’ll be able to tell time and again. It’ll never get old.

Now, can the next journey be a little less hectic, please?

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