The Blackhawks return to the ice tonight. I think they're playing Nashville. I'd have to look it up. Are you going? It's hard to ask that question with a straight face.
Maybe the playoff prediction was just wishful thinking. I really would love to see hockey have a pulse in this city again.
I never was more passionate about a team than I was about the Blackhawks. I would get to the Stadium two hours before game time in order to get first-row standing room in the second balcony. Can you imagine that?
Now, if someone offered me good seats, I'd only consider going if I had nothing else to do. Say what you want about the Cubs being lovable losers for a century, but in my book, what's happened to the Hawks and the erosion of the fiercest fan base in sports is the city's biggest sporting travesty.
So when Dale Tallon made a bold move to get Nikolai Khabibulin in the offseason, to go with some talented role players, I thought the stage was set for a revival. I thought the playoffs were a lock.
Our beat writer, Len Ziehm, was more cautious. He told me they still were going to have problems scoring. He wasn't convinced the playoffs were realistic.
I should have known. Sure, Khabibulin helped Tampa win the Cup, but he never was considered a top-5 goalie. And he's lived down to that reputation.
The season's been a disaster. Sometimes I think Trent Yawney is in way over his head.
It seems like a lifetime ago when Mike Keenan was leading the Hawks to the Finals and inventing stories about Jeremy Roenick's injured finger. Mind games. Playoffs. Loved it.
Now Hawks fans stand out like aliens from a different sports galaxy. One of my friends on our copy desk, Jeff Agrest, remains avid. He listens to games on the radio with earplugs in the office. It's easy to tell when a game's on, because he's usually kicking things.
The fact that there are no responses on this thread so far show how far this dis-organ-I-zation has fallen.
Bill Wirtz should sell the team to someone who cares and lives in the 21st century, not the 1950s.
Gosh, you are so right about what was once THE franchise in Chicago during the 60's and shared the glory somewhat with the Cubs' mini-run of '69 and a few years after. It is a travesty! Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita, Tony Esposito, The old stadium. It just didn't get much better than that. I recall as a 9-year old, my dad and I trying to get the Boston Bruin's station in Chicago because the first period was blacked out ON RADIO! By the way, Lloyd Pettit was great, too! Nevertheless, the product was so entertaining that we went through the trouble.
With the exception of a couple of spikes in the early mid-eighties due primarily to Denis Savard, et. al. and the early nineties (Keanen's teams with Chelios), this team has not only been bad, they haven't even been remotely entertaining in their "badness." I mean watching paint dry in the safety of your own home is far more worth the trouble.
I know in my heart that William Wirtz must have promised something to his father on his death bed that has been a primary cause of obliterating a once proud franchise. I think the no-TV issue was one, but now it's too late for that! I wouldn't watch them if I could!
It is this kind of sports management style that I had no qualms about leaving behind in Chicago to move far away even though I was an ardent Chicago sports fan. Where else do you see it? It is unique to Chicago. I believe Talon when he says that he tried to get big-name, scoring playmakers, but these guys wanted no part of the Chicago Blackhawks. I don't blame them!
Thank God the White Sox finally plowed through all of that crapola.
All we can hope is that Peter eventually brings this program back to what they used to be.
Until the Old Man and Pulford are out, the Hawks will never win. They can't go fast enough.
I am a one time CBH fan, but since my departure of my hometown 20+ years ago. I really did not follow them much until Keenan took them to the finals. Now, I live in NC and the mighty Carolina Hurricanes are my team! The owner of the canes has been compared to Wirtz family, but with the new changes in salary and rules. The Hurricanes have thrived in the new NHL. The CBH are still living the old glory days of a once proud franchise. Too bad. : -( Maybe every chicago fan should take up a collection and buyout the Wirtz family. Really! If not, you will still remain as the "also rans" in the NHL. What a pity, I really enjoyed wearing that red sweater. I still wear red but it has a hurricane logo! Good luck CBH fans, next few years don't seem promising either.
I miss the NHL and the Hawks I use to know. I miss the Norris Division. I miss the stadium. I miss the horn. I miss Hartford, the Jets, the Northstars.
I miss winning.....
No amount of TV is going to make losing or Gary Bettman's version of hockey any easier to watch.
It warms my heart to see the reality of an inept, lazy, and total underachieving team like the Blackhawks get recognized by Chicago fans for what they are.
Gone are the days of hard work and pain delivered to the oppossing team even when we weren't winning any cups. Now the Hawks don't win any cups and they play, well try to skate, like they don't even care. There is total lack of effort and enthusiam and my 9 and 10 year daughters could put a harder hit on a guy than this team of ladies does. Forget the shin pads give them panty hose!
It was much easier to take losing with the teams of yesteryear because the games were hard fought for 60 minutes, played with heart and as a team, and it was certainly entertaining. I'll pay to see that kind of hockey anytime. In today's hockey I won't go if given the tickets to the best seat in the house!
Perhaps we should recall the Bobby Hull's, Stan Makita's, Keith Magnuson's, Pit Martin's, Steve Larmar's, Dennis Savard's and other such PLAYERS that wore the Hawks sweater with pride when it actually stood for something more than the NHL's comic relief.
I'm limited, due to my age, to stories told by my dad; of how the Hawks use to own this town, long before MJ reigned supreme at the Stadium and UC. I just don't care a lick - can anything worse be said about a professional sports franchise?
I became hooked on the Hawks before the '61 Cup win and was a rabid fan for MANY years. My opinion is the downfall started with the move to the Campbell Conference after the first expansion. There was no place like the Stadium in the Original 6 days. So many great memories--too many to count. Now there are too many nameless, faceless players playing in nameless cities. To me the final straw is NO games against the Canadiens this year and precious few against original teams. I will always love the Blackhawks and the Indianhead, but long for how it once was.
Blackhawk Management is the worst in all of professional sports. While other teams like the Rangers and Red Wings updated NHL talent accordingly, the Blackhawks are still being managed like it's the 1960's. Watching the men's olympic hockey games in Turin supports a known fact. Canadien talent is overrated on the world stage of hockey. While other NHL teams are drafting these incredibly fast skaters from Sweden, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Russia, the Blackhawks team consists of 95% Canadien players, and I don't believe any of them played for Team Canada (who did not even medal). The NHL initiated many rule changes in the 2005-2006 season. These rule changes have helped palyers that posess more speed. The Blackhawks are one of the most penalyzed teams in hockey, because they can't keep up and they need to take these penalties to prevent getting routed. This falls on management, not the players. Not televising home games is incredibly stupid. The Hawks need to increase their fan base not alienate them. The Cubs have such a large fan base because they were televised on WGN. This station became a superstation and the Cubs were televised all over the country, more importantly to areas that did not have a major league team. The Hawks could have had something similar, but management was greedy. Mr. Wirtz owns the largest liquor distributor in the Chicago land area. When you buy beer at the UC, your drinking his beer. Hawks management felt by not televising home games, the fans would have to come to the stadium. Instead they ran a great franchise into the ground. I'll always be a Hawks fan, but I'll never expect anything from them until they clean house. It's a dream, but maybe they can restore the days of the original six.
Is there any way to fire an owner? It's not fair to the handful of hockey fans around Chicago. Wirtz is about the last dinosaur alive in the year 2006. Forget the Lochness Monster. THE monster is in our midst!
Being Canadian myself, I agree that Canadian talent is often overrated, but that is no fault of the Canadian media. That hype was created by the US media way back in the golden days of the NHL. I would say in the early seventies the American franchises woke up to European talent waiting to be harvested.
I've been a Chicago Blackhawk fan since I was 7 years old and will NEVER give up on them.