A brand new day for Hawks
I woke up Monday morning and felt ... good. You know? Just good.
Someone got lucky Sunday night!
I'm not Mr. Hockey or Mr. Blackhawk or even a distant cousin, but I know heart and talent when I see it. I know what a champion looks like.
"I don't know anything about this sport, but I do know that David Eckstein would fit right in."
And I know that this champion is representing Chicago, a city that isn't exactly in danger of sinking under the weight of its trophy case.
This team does play in the city of Chicago, yes. Also, I can't really think of one particular city that has a stranglehold on all of the big 4 sports as far as championships go. Chicago is doing alright in that regard.
And the Hawks are going to the finals because of you -- all of you. That can't be overstated.
That's right. You, overweight middle aged man in the stands. You are an important reason for the Blackhawks playoff success. How, I have no idea. But damn it, you deserve your name engraved on the cup just as much as any of those players.
This is everyone's team,
Shares of it are publicly traded on the floor of the NYSE!
not just the team of those fans who stood by the club through dribs of thick and miles of thin over the years.
Oh, another one of these articles. The ones where a sportswriter gives a shit reason for now, all of the sudden, caring about a team.
Membership does not require having had the misfortune of following this franchise during its darker days. You needn't have sat inside the old Chicago Stadium to understand what's going on.
You should, however, have a working idea of how the game of hockey itself is played. That's what I think a majority of old fans complain about.
Ask any Blackhawk what the United Center is like during a playoff game, and they won't tell you about the ice or the lighting or the scoreboard or the Ice Crew girls. OK, maybe the Ice Crew girls.
Heh, hot chicks in skimpy outfits.
But they'll mostly tell you about how loud the joint gets, especially after a Hawks goal. They'll tell you about the people in the seats, and they won't discriminate based on years of patronage.
I'm guessing, aside from all that PR bullshit that hockey players do because they're seemingly so personable, they couldn't care less about the people in the stands. The whole idea that athletes 'do it for the fans' is dumb.
So you are fully aware of the arguments that old fans of the team have set forth. Cool, saves me some time...
The insiders would like to keep the outsiders out. It's the old us-vs.-them thing.
...I guess not. Look. No one is trying to keep this as an exclusive club. What they're trying to do is prevent it from becoming Wrigley field v.2.0, where the game is second to the party in the stands. If you are truly a fan of the game now that the Hawks are doing well, fine, great, welcome to Blackhawks fandom. But the fact that my dad and brother, two lifelong Hawks fans, can't get tickets to see games anymore because yuppies who don't know the first thing about the game buy season tickets merely because "it's the thing to do" is one of the big complaints.
As the Hawks get ready for the finals, there's no them, only us.
Rick Morrissey plays backup goalie for the Blackhawks.
You might be somewhat new to these Hawks and to this sport. There's no need to apologize for your late arrival. Enjoy this.
And maybe, if you choose to stick with it, learn what icing is.
This particular version of the Hawks is unlike anything that came before it. It's as if a team sprung up in two years' time due to weird science or spontaneous generation or something.
It's almost as if this team was bad for a certain number of years and able to garner solid draft early draft picks and get lucky on some late round picks and some trades/free agent signings turned in their favor. You know, magic n' shit.
There are fans out there who would like you to know they survived the Eric Daze era. Good for them. But it doesn't take that to embrace this.
No, but it helps. It feels great that the team whom you've invested so much time in rooting for is finally doing good.
You newer fans can appreciate this team on its own merits. And you have. Now you can reel off the names Burish, Seabrook, Hjalmarsson, Niemi, Brouwer and Eager when, not too long ago, you might not have known more than two names on the roster -- Kane and Toews.
You can give the names of players on the team. You are a fan.
You might know that Hawks general manager Stan Bowman was born in Montreal and that role player Bryan Bickell was born in Bowmanville, Canada.
Imagine how eerie it would be if Bickell's last name were "Montreal"
You know that Dale Tallon, who was forced out as GM last summer, is a beloved figure among the players, having drafted or signed most of them.
You now know for certain that teeth are, like, so overrated.
You now know what an embolism feels like after reading the last few sentences.
Do you look silly wearing a $300 Jonathan Toews jersey because you're 50 years old? Yes, you do. But that's all right. You look just as silly as the lifelong Hawks fan who wears a $300 Toews jersey.
Jerseys on grown men do look silly, yes. But what does this have to do with anything?
Whether you're new to following this team or not, you're reacting with the same childlike wonder. Here's the thing: You're not all that different. It's hard to act like you've been here before when you haven't.
Nothing? Got it. Oh, and Chicago made the finals in '92, so a lot of old fans can act like they've been there before.
We Chicagoans like to think of ourselves as a little tougher than people from other cities.
Every person from every city ever thinks this.
Maybe it's because the weather here has such wild mood swings. We soldier on, never mind the 30 mph wind turning us into ice sculptures.
No other city has weather!
So we see something familiar in these Hawks.
They also have weather! They also have an inflated sense of self worth due to the city in which they live!
Oh, the Hawks are wildly talented, too, and maybe that's where the comparison ends. But you can pretend, can't you?
Oh yeah. The team just happens to be really good at playing hockey. You aren't. But you matter all the same.
