Blog In WI

I want to talk about the Chicago Blackhawks. But really, before you do any Blackhawks article, you need a proper start. Take it away, Wayne. 

Blackhawk fandom is a precarious place. Actually, that goes for most fandoms in the city of Chicago itself, and even extending way up along the lake. I grew up a Cubs and Packers fan, then the Blackhawks and then the NBA. No real rooting interest either way in the Bucks or Bulls. With the NBA, you got away with rooting for players, and we always rooted for Michael Jordan and Larry Bird. It made the biases easy. But growing up in the 80s and 90s, and being a young adult through the 00s, there wasn’t a ton to be thrilled with in the professional sports world. While the “What Ifs” could be played out forever, I’ve found that I’d rather just take the time to find other ways to achieve the necessary sports thrills that failed to provide in my youth. 

The 2009-2010 Chicago Blackhawks team may be the most fun team that my “teams” have had in a long time. I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to think up the last really enjoyable Blackhawks team that I rooted for, and the best I could come up with were the tail end of the Stanley Cup Finals team that lost to Mario Lemieux’s Pittsburgh Penguins teams in the early 90s. These Hawks teams were captained by Dirk Graham, a gritty two-way forward, early on, then by all-everything defenseman Chris Chelios later. I’ve written more words than I ever care to at this point about Chris Chelios, and have always found Graham to be… uninteresting. The Hawks were headlined, though, by center Jeremy Roenick and winger Steve Larmer. 

Roenick and Larmer often played together on the top line, top penalty killing line, and top power play line. Roenick was the playmaker, while Larmer was a sniper and defensive wizard. Larmer’s gritty play, and willingness to get his hands dirty (metaphorically. I mean, they wear gloves and all) appealed to the Chicago fans and me in particular. Roenick was, simply, the best player on the ice for the Blackhawks (ok, debatable with Chelios, but at least on the frontline), Chicago’s answer to Steve Yzerman, Pat LaFontaine, Mark Messier, Brett Hull, Mike Modano, etc, even if he never was as good as any of those players. He was ours though, he was a Blackhawk. He was the guy who replaced Denis Savard, the guy who was the next great thing. Perhaps our expectations were too high for him. Perhaps our memories are belied by his actual production (being the best player on the last good team will do that), perhaps the line of people to replace him the same way he replaced Savard just don’t hold up (Eric “Fucking” Daze for example). Still he, was our Roenick. We didn’t mind seeing him try to win a Cup somewhere else, as opposed to Chelios and his betraying all of us by staying with the Detroit Dead Wings. 

And that was it. There were a few bright spots after that team, Tony Amonte and Gary Suter come to mind, but plenty more disappointments mixed in: Daze, Bob Probert, Tuomo Ruutu, Tyler Arnason, Peter Bondra, the zombie corpses of Wendel Clark and Paul Coffey, JP Dumont, Theo Fleury, Doug Gilmour, Bernie Nicholls, Steve Sullivan… good god, that list of names really gave me migraine. JP Dumont might have been rock bottom for the Blackhawks: He was a promising player who developed into a very good 2^nd line winger at his peak. The Blackhawks had to include him in a trade of Doug Gilmour so they could unload Gilmour’s contract. And that, for the most part, sums up the Chicago Blackhawks, until the death of noted cheap skate owner Bill Wirtz. 

Rocky Wirtz is, essentially, the exact opposite of his old man. Willing to spend a dollar to make a dollar, willing to develop players, sign free agents, show the Blackhawks on local tv (even home games) while also getting them off cable and onto over the air WGN for some games (unheard of for most of the last half of the elder Wirtz era). It may seem silly that something as simple as putting your home games on TV was a big deal to Blackhawks fans, but it was. And in a way, I’m still sad that Wirtz the younger made that decision. 

One of Bill Wirtz’s other tokens of cheapness was having the play by play calls on TV and radio done by the same set of announcers. Pat Foley has been the voice of the Hawks since as long as I can remember, and I still remember listening to Foley and Dale Tallon (later the GM who constructed the majority of this Stanley Cup team before being fired) on many nights when the Hawks were at home. Foley is still, for my money, the best play by play man who’s not Vin Scully in all of sports. Foley’s clean calls, quick but accurate descriptions and ability to follow the flow of the game, as well as his rapport with Tallon made many of those Blackhawks games special. On the short list of things I miss when I moved to Madison from SE Wisconsin, Foley calling Blackhawk games is on there, even ahead of getting all the Cubs games. 

But now its not an issue. The Blackhawks have played most of their games the last two months on national and major cable. Well, ok, not major cable, but Versus. Still, I get the channel, and I get it in HD. That’s a win right there. The sense of dread as game one of the Stanley Cup Finals closes upon me (and as of this writing, its down to mere hours) is even grander than Game 7 of the NLCS in 2003 (my greatest live sporting event) or the last Packers NFC championship game (Fucking Brett Favre in the cold). The Blackhawks are the favorite. They were among the 2-3 best teams in all of the NHL msot of the season. Coach Joel Quenville has an awesome mustache. In a show of solidarity, I haven’t shaved my mustache in the playoffs. My version of the playoff beard I guess, no matter how ridiculous I look (answer: very). I’m ridiculously confident and scared at the same time. It’s an exhilarating feeling. 

I’ll find a way to cheer for Toews, Kane, Keith, Seabs, Buff, Sharp, Steeg, Bolland, Hossa, Sopel the list goes on and on. I’ll cringe for every shot that gets to Antii Niemi (truly the wildcard this series). I’ll hope and pray that John Madden’s Yoda skills work for four more wins. And I’ll be on Twitter, where the greatest group of Blackhawks fans have resided and helped me fall back in love with a team that was so unlikeable before the old man died. 

Also, this helps. My new favorite goal song 

One Goal. Four More Wins. Let’s do this, Blackhawks fans. Man, this is a fun team to watch.