It’s been a tough week for all of us.

At around 2:50 p.m. Eastern Standard Time last Monday, two explosions rattled the Boston Marathon, injuring more than 170 spectators and killing three people. The youngest of the victims was eight year-old Martin Richard. The blast shook the city of Boston as the attack took place on a special day for New Englanders: Patriots’ Day. The holiday is meant to celebrate the anniversary of the first battles of the American Revolution at Lexington and Concord. The Red Sox have played early in the day since 1968 while the Boston Marathon is going on.

It was supposed to be a great day, celebrating one of the most pure forms of sport in this country: running and the marathon.

After the attack, the Boston Bruins game for that evening was canceled and the Boston Celtics game against the Indiana Pacers game for Tuesday night was scrubbed. The bombings have led to an outpouring of sympathy and support from every corner of our country and throughout the world.

But when sports returned to the city on Wednesday, Bean Town gave us quite the show, reminding us why Boston is one of our most patriotic cities. When the Bruins took the ice that night, it wasn’t just any other hockey game. The 17,565 fans in attendance that night gave the Bruins a standing ovation just for making their presence known to the arena.

Then, like every other professional and amateur sporting event in the country, the Star Spangled Banner was performed. In Boston’s case, the National Anthem was performed by local icon Rene Rancourt. The singer began to sing the National Anthem and then he motioned for the crowd to sing it, and they did. Just about every fan in the arena was belting out the National Anthem, with such gusto, passion and patriotism, that it gives you goose bumps to see it. It almost brought a tear to my eye because it was so blatantly cool. Following the Anthem, the fans began to cheer, “USA, USA, USA,” a chant that has become familiar in many sporting venues.

This sight was a wonderful treasure and it is a moment that will live on in history, but what does it actually mean? We all know the situation with the marathon, the tragedy and the rebirth of sports into the city, but there, in that moment, what did it actually mean? Before we answer that, let’s step back a bit.

The Boston Marathon is our country’s most prized race. For the last 117 years, the Marathon has been run with both professionals and amateur runners competing in it. For the 116 previous Boston Marathons, it was sport in its purest form. The objective of the race isn’t to win it; out of the thousands of competitors, there is only a small percentage of runners who actually have a chance to win the race. The point of the Boston Marathon is to do it. It’s all about making yourself better and proving that yes, you can run in one of the world’s most prestigious sporting events. There’s just as much pride in the race in coming in last as there is in coming in first because at least you finished. That’s what is so American about the race; you gave it your best shot and you didn’t let anybody hold you back. You accomplished your dream. And that’s what America is about, isn’t it?

The Boston Marathon, accompanied with the surge of patriotism around Patriots’ Day, brings the city of Boston together to enjoy the majesty and innocence of the sport and creates a sense of community. Monday’s attack violated both of those ideas. Put it this way: at 2:49 p.m. ET, the legacy of the Marathon was the same that it had always been, doing the race and finishing it. By 2:51 p.m. ET, the 116-year legacy of the race could be entirely rewritten from the ground up. So what are we writing the new legacy to be? I’ll bet that the new legacy of the Boston Marathon will be something along the lines of rising, like a phoenix, from the ashes, no matter how high the flames may be. The Marathon will return next year and the year after that and the year after that and it will be bigger, better and stronger for all time.

So, what does the Marathon have to do with the National Anthem at the Bruins game? Well, there’s one more thing that the attack on the Marathon did: it brought life into the sport. We had always used sports to get away from real life, from the things that trouble us in the world. Sports served as a place where we didn’t have to think about wars or attacks. But now nothing, not even the purest form of sport, is sacred. Now, sports are real life. They too have tragedy in them and there’s almost no escape from the hardship.

But what that National Anthem showed us on Wednesday night was that Americans, starting in Boston, are willing to take a step to a brand new identity. Singing our nation’s anthem at a hockey game was a turning point in how we will perceive ourselves. If our refuges from the troubles in the world are being taken away, then what are we going to use to escape? Nothing. The Bruins game served to galvanize Americans and their relationship to sports. It was a time when the fans were saying, “Yes, we are Americans and we love our teams. But this is who we are. If life isn’t staying out of sports, then sports are simply our lives now.”

This change in identity is the new American Revolution. We will do all things with an increased passion and fervor because, sadly enough, we don’t know when it could be taken away from us by some form of unspeakable evil.