For five years the memory haunted them.
For Aaron Ward and Mike Knuble, former Michigan hockey players, Joe Louis Arena held bitter memories of missed opportunity.
While playing for Michigan in 1992, Ward and Knuble suffered heartbreak. After a typical Michigan season - concluding with a playoff loss to an inferior team - Knuble and Ward were among the devastated Wolverines. They hurt while watching their team come so close to the NCAA championship, falling to Wisconsin in the NCAA semifinals.
"It's been so long since I've won anything important," Knuble said.
It took five years, but those memories have finally softened, and once again the Joe exudes happy memories for the pair.
All it took was a Stanley Cup championship.
Both Ward and Knuble play for the Detroit Red Wings and, with Saturday's 2-1 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers, they are now champions.
"This is what you always play for in the driveway, you play for the Stanley Cup," Knuble said. "It's been incredible."
Knuble, who graduated from Michigan in 1995, has slowly worked his way through the Detroit system, spending most of this season with the Wings' farm team in Adirondack, NY.
His relative inexperience may have cost him the ultimate reward, however.
Under current National Hockey League rules, only players who saw ice time in the playoffs or played in at least 40 regular-season games will have their names on Lord Stanley's holy grail.
Knuble fell short of the requirements for inscription on the Stanley Cup. But his omission from the silver stein has hardly dampened his spirits in the wake of Detroit's first Cup in 42 years.
"It's kind of disappointing, but hopefully my chance will come again next year," he said. "Obviously, it's going to be our goal to win again."
While Knuble did not dress during the playoff run, he and the others scratched for the championship game donned their jerseys and joined the on-ice celebration following the victory.
Ward was a bit more integral in the Cup run for the Wings. After playing 49 games and platooning for much of the regular season on defense, Detroit coach Scotty Bowman endorsed Ward as a part of his regular rotation for the final three series of the playoffs.
Gaining playing time in the postseason, Ward ensured that his name would live for the ages on hockey's highest honor.
As for the similarities between the championship loss on the Joe Louis ice five years ago and the victory Saturday, Knuble was frank in his evaluation of their importance.
"It's on a different level," he said. "At Michigan it's college and something you do. This is your job. It's the peak of your job and achieving the most you could ever achieve."
The peak arrived for the former Wolverines on Saturday at Joe Louis.
Redemption is sweet.
MARGARET MYERS/Daily
Detroit Red Wings fans swarmed the streets of Detroit after the Wings clinched the Stanley Cup in game four at Joe Louis Arena on Saturday.