The wistfulness is not hard to come by. Eric Lindros took the same exit off 295 to get to the practice rink Wednesday, and passed the same restaurant that fed him so many midday meals in his younger days.
Everywhere he went, he felt that familiar anticipation, that edge, that the people of this metropolis once conveyed to him. The Eric Lindros era that absorbed most of the 1990s might not have ever grasped that final prize, but it was filled with walkups such as the one being experienced in anticipation of Sunday’s NFC championship game – elation, anxiety, analysis, all building toward the actual event.