Everything Else

The Road Never Ends And The Party Never Stops

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While us fans are still going to bask in the glow of Monday’s victory and Thursday’s parade (or in my case, Wednesday’s and Thursday’s Kyle Schwarber performance), this week is when the Hawks front office has to start to pivot toward next year, and namely to the point clearing out cap space to get Saad, Kruger, and whoever else they might like into the fold so we can attempt to do this all again in a year’s time.

Watching this unfold, I have to say I’ve been impressed with the local media’s reserved, optimistic tone about what the Hawks can do next year while the national — both here and north of the 49th — have been forecasting doom and gloom and it’s 2011 all over again! As it’s our job to piss on national and local narratives alike, let me poke some holes in this latter view, if you don’t mind.

Everything Else

Fathers’ Day

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I posted this last year on Father’s Day weekend, and it seemed to be a big hit. We’ll get back to normal coverage tomorrow and there’s a lot to get through this week, but for now enjoy this. 

Yep, that’s Dad.

Going to take a break from player reviews today for some more Friday goofiness. With Father’s Day this weekend, I thought I’d provide my father George a gift by sharing his writing with those of you who are interested. Though he was about as self-deprecating as a person as there could be, Dad was never shy about boasting about his writing. And neither am I (about his writing, not mine).

I know a lot of you come here for the analysis or the music/Simpsons references or the creative swearing (and we’re proud of that), but some do come for the style and writing we use (which we still find strange but to each his or her own). My father George was the back-page columnist for Billiards Digest for over 30 years, and even though I’m obviously a little biased I think I can still safely say he was one of the best sportswriters I have ever read. You don’t have to know anything about pool or billiards to enjoy it, which I think is about the highest compliment you can pay. My brother (writer for CubsDen on ChicagoNow.com if you didn’t know) and I constantly reach for this standard, knowing full well we’ll never come into the same zip code as Dad.

The Digest has catalogued the last few years of his columns as well as his best work from his entire career, and you can get to that right here. However, there is one column that’s always been one of my favorites that isn’t on there, so I’m going to share it with you below.

Everything Else

It’s a Gas, Gas, Gas

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I’ll make you this promise – you will not see me mention the D word around here. I’m not sure why people need to slap a title on this to make them feel better. How about this – the Hawks are a really good team season upon season.

The Hawks 2015 title isn’t 48 hours old and I’m already fatigued by this debate. Anyways, that’s enough talk about that.

Everything Else

Love Is A Long Road: Hawks Win Stanley Cup

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I’m going to eschew the normal wrap here. Because who the fuck would want to read it anyway? If you’re lucky, you get one game per season where the minutiae doesn’t matter at all, only the ending. Around these parts, we’ve gotten three of them. It’s still hard to get my arms around typing that.

In fact, all of last night is hard to get your arms around. Just a surreal day, with the weather playing a huge part in it. I’ve been doing this seven full seasons now, and never in all the games I’ve sold programs before had it rained like that. Sure, it rained hard for 20 minutes at times, or a steady drizzle for an hour. But this was relentless. I was trapped in my car for 15-20 minutes, and when I could finally get out the water in the street was over my ankles. I think my socks still weigh four to five pounds.