When Zach Sanford scored the Blues’ fourth goal in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final, the goal light at TD Garden in Boston and the phone at Iron Age Tattoo in University City, Mo., both lit up.
“Even before the series started, everybody in the shop was saying, ‘If we win, those tattoos, there’s going to be a lot,'” said Iron Age manager Haley Fields, whose crew was watching the game on an iPad. “Honestly, I was getting calls with like five minutes left (in the game), people asking if we were taking walk-ins the next day or if we had any appointments available. Then when we won, I had phone calls like off the hook around 10 (p.m.) as we were trying to close.”
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The next day, Iron Age did 20 tattoos and about 15 of them commemorated the Blues’ first championship in their 52-year history. Now a month later, the parlor has done an estimated 150 team-related tattoos.
“We’re still doing a ton,” Fields said. “We have a corkboard in the back that we use for reminders and drawings, and that whole board has been overtaken by Blues tattoos. Some people are getting the Stanley Cup, the Arch, the St. Louis skyline … a lot of them have been repeats, but it’s just a good, traditional design that will forever be classic.”
There has been a similar uptick at other tattoo parlors in the St. Louis area, particularly among patrons who have been promising they’d get a tattoo whenever the Blues won the Stanley Cup. Recently, we found a few who stuck to their word, got the story behind their fandom and asked what went into their artwork.
Randy Karraker, 56, has been a St. Louis sports talk-show host for decades and a self-proclaimed Blues fan even longer. He currently co-hosts The Fast Lane on 101 ESPN, where his allegiance is obvious when discussing the club.
“I am essentially a fan with access, and I express my emotions on the air,” he said.
That’s actually how Karraker’s tattoo came about, with him bemoaning the fact back in 2011 that the Blues would not make the playoffs.
“It was typical Randy, ‘Woe is me,'” he said. “I said, ‘If the Blues ever win a Stanley Cup, I’ll get a tattoo,’ and it became a thing. Michelle Smallmon was our producer at the time, and every year we would get toward the playoffs and she would say, ‘This is the year, this is the year,’ and that got the listeners excited.
“I honestly did not ever think that I would have to get this tattoo. I honestly never thought that in my lifetime the Blues would win the Stanley Cup. But a radio show is a community, and especially when you’re asking them to buy things on the air, you have to pay up, you have to be honest. So, I have the tattoo.”
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On June 24, as Karraker prepared to go on the air at 3 p.m. CT, Dave Canoy at InkSpot in St. Peters prepped him for a tattoo on live radio. Karraker started with a stick microphone, but quickly had to change to a headset.
“I move when I talk, and I realized that, ‘OK, he’s putting a thing that’s going to last my entire life on my back and I’m moving around, so this isn’t a very smart deal,'” Karraker said. “So I got a headset and tried to stay as still and as calm as I could while I was talking during the course of the show.”
Canoy, who has tatted up broadcaster Joe Buck and former St. Louis Cardinal David Freese, worked on Karraker from 3 to 6:45 p.m., giving himself 15 minutes to spare before the end of the show.
“It was challenging,” Canoy said. “Normally there’s talking, however Randy is pretty animated when he’s talking, so his body was moving quite a bit. That was definitely difficult because there are no erasers in tattooing. I have a young artist here who’s new, and he was looking at me like, ‘I couldn’t do it, man. I was watching him move and watching you tattoo, and I don’t know how you did that.'”
Karraker went with the Blue Note, along with the Stanley Cup and the Arch, because of his love for the community.
“It is the Blues, but it’s the St. Louis Blues, especially with the ownership now, and especially when you got to that parade and saw how St. Louis was so galvanized,” he said. “It was really important for me to get the Arch and obviously the Stanley Cup, so that’s my homage to St. Louis. It’s exactly what I would’ve wanted. Even if I go back eight years and envision the tattoo that I talked about, this would be it.”
Canoy called it an “awesome story,” particularly because it was Karraker’s first tattoo.
“I really had no idea how big of a deal it was until he was in there, and then it became apparent,” Canoy said. “For me, I have to separate the story from the tattoo most of the time. Everybody has a story about their tattoo and it’s my job to create a good piece of artwork, so I have to separate the meaning. But him getting that tattoo and it being his first one, it was a great story. I didn’t realize how much he had been talking about it, and it became very clear how big it really was.”
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The moment other Blues fans got their tattoos, such as Steve Davis, 34, were also years in the making.
He became a diehard fan in the mid-1990s, later listening to games on the internet then attending dozens more. In 2006, at age 21, he got his first tattoo, which featured the World Series-champion St. Louis Cardinals, then held out for the Blues.
“I’m not doing anything with the Blues until they win a Stanley Cup,” he told himself. “To be honest, there’s been so much heartache. I felt like Charlie Brown, just waiting for them to pull the football out from me at the end. It’s hard to pinpoint a moment when I actually thought the Blues were going to freaking do it.”
Davis felt different about this year, but didn’t want to jinx it by picking out a design before the Blues won the Cup.
“I think everybody has had some ideas in their head of what they’re thinking about, but I refused to do anything serious about the design until after Game 7,” he said.
With the Blues in Boston for Game 7, Davis attended the team’s watch party at Enterprise Center, and after celebrating in the streets afterward, he couldn’t sleep when he got home. He had two thoughts: go to the airport and meet the team, or get some sleep, wake up early and get a tattoo. He went to bed.
“But I woke up thinking to myself, there’s no way that I’m going to find somebody to get a tattoo, because if you know anything about getting tattoos, you can’t just call somebody and they slap a tattoo on your back,” Davis said. “Usually you make an appointment and come back, and it’s a week-long process. But I picked up the phone, and I called Saint Charles Tattoo because it was the first one that opened. I called five minutes before they opened because I’m going to be that guy, and I kid you not, like a scene out of a movie, a guy by the name of ‘Wolfman’ picks up the phone and says, ‘Thanks for calling Saint Charles Tattoo,’ and when he stops talking, all I hear in the background is ‘Gloria.’ I’m like, ‘Oh wow!’
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“I said, ‘I know this is like a shot in the dark, but is there any possible way that you’d be interested in tattooing a Blues tattoo on me for the Stanley Cup?’ And he says, ‘Brother, as long as I’m sure you’ve been waiting for this tattoo, I’ve been waiting to give this tattoo to somebody.'”
If Davis could come up with a design, Wolfman would create an opening at 2 p.m. He liked the Washington Capitals’ concept from 2018 with the U.S. Capitol building, but obviously wanted the Arch and the St. Louis skyline.
“But I didn’t want to get greedy,” Davis said. “Blues tattoos are not easy, and the more complicated it is, the harder it is for somebody to do, so I just asked him for the Arch. But when I showed up, he showed me the design that had the whole skyline, and before he could even tell me how much it cost, I was like, ‘Let’s do it!'”

Davis’ tattoo took five hours, and while Wolfman was drawing the Stanley Cup on his new customer’s back, the real Cup was at OB Clark’s sports bar.
“That’s why I missed the OB Clark’s party,” he said. “So I missed the airport because I was sleeping, and I missed the OB Clark’s party because I was getting my tattoo. All my buddies were blowing me up, asking where the hell I was, but I told them I had something better to do.”
Davis’ wife approved of the tattoo, though not necessarily of the $500 cost. But after planning to attend Game 6 against the Bruins, which could have cost upward of $2,500, he told her “it cost $2,000 less than tickets, and she said, ‘That’s fair!'”
Cody Filben, 26, started following the Blues prior to the 2004-05 lockout, and instead of turning him off, the season-long stoppage actually led to him getting hooked.
“I missed it,” he said.
Filben has been watching ever since and told himself that when the Blues won the Cup, he’d add the art to his shoulder. Like the others, when attending games earlier this season, he didn’t think this would be the year.
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“We went to the game against Toronto, the 11th game of the 11-game winning streak, and we thought, ‘Well, this will be the highlight of the season,'” Filben said. “But it was one of those things where it started looking like they were going to be good, and you’re like, ‘Well, maybe I’ll start entertaining the idea of the tattoo.’ But I never expected it to be so soon. The worst-to-first story, you’re like, ‘OK, it was meant to be, you have to get the tattoo now.'”
This was going to be Filben’s first tattoo, and he wanted it to be special. He went to Steel and Ink Tattoo Studio in St. Louis, where the artist was Derrick Wagner.
“I always thought about getting something that would reflect the city you grew up in, so I got the Arch in there,” Filben said. “But it’s kind of nice to have the words ‘Stanley Cup champions’ in there. The Blue Note was the roughest part. That’s where you start thinking, ‘Oh, how long is this going to take?’ Your body parts start falling asleep and you have to stand up.”

Filben’s tattoo also took about 3-4 hours and he dropped $400-500, but he’s glad he got it, especially when people notice it in public.
“A lot of parents, they’ll point it out to their kids,” he said. “People ask if it’s real. I’m like, ‘Yes, it’s very real.’ They think it’s like a sticker, and I’m not ready to peel it off yet. It’s kind of nice, if I went to another city, people would know where I came from. It’s nice paying homage to St. Louis.”
Andrew Fuegner, 30, remembers being carried into the old Arena on his father Kurt’s shoulders. In 2007, the family bought season tickets and has had them ever since.
“I fell in love with hockey,” he said. “I ended up playing some high school hockey and then went on to play a little bit of college hockey at Missouri State.”
Fuegner remembers that he was about 13 or 14 — “that rebel age,” he said — when the idea of a Blues tattoo first entered his mind.
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“I always told myself, if they ever win, I’m going to get something,” he said. “I didn’t know what I was going to get. I knew I wanted the Blues’ logo, and I knew I wanted the Cup.”
After the Blues beat Boston, Fuegner knew that he would be following through on that, but he was even more committed after seeing his dad’s reaction at the parade.
“That was something I was waiting to see,” Fuegner said. “We were right up against the rail, right on Market Street, and (Ryan) O’Reilly was coming by with the Cup. I just remember turning around at one point and just seeing my dad bawling his eyes out. That was the moment where it hit you — at the parade — like, ‘They finally did it.'”
The next day was Father’s Day, and before going to a family gathering, Fuegner went to get his tattoo from Jason Rainbolt at Deaf Dog Ink in St. Charles. Fuegner basically gave Rainbolt free rein to ink what he wanted to on his left thigh, and Rainbolt came up with the idea of O’Reilly coming out of the Blue Note hoisting the Cup.

Fuegner loved it.
“Throughout the season, O’Reilly was the backbone of the team,” he said. “Before (Jordan) Binnington came in, who was our main guy? He played outstanding and played every single game. He’s got great character … great leader.”
Bonnie O’Reilly, Ryan’s mother, loved it, too, when the picture was sent to her.
“That’s awesome,” she emailed.
“She’s probably dumbfounded,” Fuegner laughed. “That’s great.”
Guys aren’t the only getting Blues Stanley Cup tattoos. A pair of Brittanys — Brittany Dennis and Brittany Creech — are also sporting new tats.
Dennis, 22, whose phone case says “Hockey Queen,” says her dad, Mitchell, got her involved in the sport at a young age, taking her to games.
“My brother (Brandon) used to win those contests where you get to fist-bump the players,” she said. “The first time I did it, I was like three or four and had to stand up on a chair.”
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Dennis got her first Blues tattoo when she was 18, but says she’s “been saving my right arm for the Cup.” She wanted to get the tattoo the day after they beat the Bruins, but Iron Age was booked, so she got it last Monday. The Cup design with the Arch and skyline was done on her right shoulder by Jason James.

“I’ve always been known as the ‘Crazy girl Blues fan,’ but to have something forever is pretty neat,” Dennis said.
The permanent tattoo isn’t as difficult to comprehend as the Blues actually winning the Cup.
“I don’t think it actually hit until the 4th of July,” Dennis said. “I was driving down Highway 30 and listening to Gloria, and I just started crying. I’m like ‘Oh my gosh, it’s real.’ So now every time I watch a highlight video, I just started tearing up.”
Creech, 21, also grew up going to games with her dad and has done some modeling for the Blues’ team store, but the idea for her tattoo developed only in the last few months. In April, she posted a tweet to her Twitter followers, which are now up to about 118,000, that she would get a specific tattoo if the Blues won the Cup.
“I felt so good about the team, and I was like, ‘If the Blues win, I’m going to get that tattoo’ … just kind of like as a joke,” Creech said. “But immediately when I sent it out, people were replying, ‘We’re going to hold you to this.’ Obviously once we got to the Cup, they were like, ‘You have to do it now.’ During Game 7, whenever I would check my phone, I would have five new tweets that said that.”
Creech immediately sent Fields, the manger at Iron Age and a close friend, a message asking if she could get the tattoo the next day.
“When she tweeted (in April), I replied to her right away and said, ‘Well, you better come see me at my work if you’re going to do it,” Fields said. “But I kind of forgot about it, and then as soon as we won, she texted me, and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, you’re actually going to do it?’ I honestly didn’t believe she was going to do it.”
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Creech had the tattoo done by Iron Age’s Morgan Griffin.



“I have a large following who holds me to what I say, so I was like, ‘Well I have to do it now,'” Creech said.
She insists that the tattoo has nothing to do with Binnington, per se, and more to do with the Blues.
“Once Binnington really started hitting that streak and pretty much turning things around for everyone, I feel like the most common phrase I heard during each game was, ‘And a save by Binnington,'” she said. “It could have been anyone. Like if the phrase was ‘And a save by (Jake) Allen,’ I would have done the same thing.”
“It’s less about (Binnington) and his name. I wasn’t like, ‘Yeah, let me go get a tramp stamp with someone’s name. It’s just so exciting and, to me, kind of sums up the season. I mean it’s permanent, but it’s monumental for the city and something I’m going to look back on and be like, ‘That’s when the Blues won the Cup.'”

After posing for a group photo this week, Karraker said the response from Blues fans has been amazing.
“There must be thousands (of new tattoos), and I’m thrilled by it,” he said. “I’m thrilled that sports can have that much of an impact on a community, because I’ve always believed that. When people are making a lifetime decision, that tells you how much of an impact that sports can have, and what the Blues have done is amazing. I hope — I mean I know — the players and the front office appreciate the fact that people are actually doing something that’s going to last the rest of their lives because of what they did in winning the Stanley Cup.”
And it’s more than just extra business for Fields.
“It’s especially touching for me,” she said. “(Former Blues general manager) Ron Caron was my grandpa (John Frisella’s) absolute best friend before Ron passed away. He was a big part of my family and why my brother plays hockey. So to see all these Blues supporters coming in and getting these tattoos, it’s super cool for me to see because I know that it’s something that Ron would have loved.”
(Top photo of the corkboard at Iron Age Tattoo (The Athletic).)
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