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Game Time: 6:00PM CST
TV/Radio: NBC Sports Chicago, NHL Network, WGN-AM 720
Alberta Clipper: Matchsticks & Gasoline, Flames Nation
As this Blackhawks season quickly spirals into the separating asshole of mutual acrimony and defeat, every successive game is both an opportunity to right the ship, and also one to finally make the breakthrough into Fun Bad. And the schedule certainly has conspired to make the latter more likely with the Flames in town tonight on West Madison.
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Game Time: 7:00PM CST
TV/Radio: NBC Sports Chicago, WGN-AM 720
Connecting Flights: Arctic Ice Hockey, Jets Nation
After getting their asses shellacked by a Vegas team that doesn’t even really have its shit together relative to how they played last year, the Hawks leave the frozen tundra of Chicago for…the frozen tundra of Winnipeg to face a Jets team with legit cup aspirations this year.
There’s never a dull moment even when the on-ice product is mediocre at best, so that’s why Sam, Fifth Feather, Pullega, and myself (Scottie, Luc, Ron Harper, Robert Chief) are here to discuss it. As is customary, no subscription necessary for the post-jump audio.
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Game Time: 6:30PM CST
TV/Radio: NBCSN, NBC Sports Chicago, WGN-AM 720
The Business Of Pleasure: Raw Charge
In a manner befitting of their relative age as far as the hockey world is concerned, rather than spend Black Friday in California as they have done in years past, the Hawks have opted to go the snow bird route and kick off the holiday season in Florida, starting tonight in Tampa against the lecherous Jon Cooper and his Lightning.
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Game Time: 6:00PM CST
TV/Radio: NBCSN, NBC Sports Chicago, WGN-AM 720
What A Bunch Of Clowns: Japer’s Rink, Russian Machine Never Breaks
Though the Circus Trip is now a thing of the past, the Black Wednesday/Black Friday two-fer for the Hawks still remains, and the past to years things have been set out east rather than in California. And the earlier start time is probably better for all involved on one of the biggest drinking nights of the calendar year, but given the state of things with the Hawks, that probably won’t stop anyone reading this from getting after it and ending up at White Castle/Burrito House/Bacci’s Pizza by 9:30, not that anyone here would know anything about that.
Adam Hess and Rose Rankin stopped by to assist in this weeks edition, which actually had some relatively positive outcomes to discuss. As always, no subscription is required for the podcast after the jump.
Three games into a new era to discuss in the three-man-weave Slak-less formation. As always the download is free after the jump.
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Game Time: 12:00PM CST
TV/Radio: NBC Sports Chicago, NHL Network, WGN-AM 720
The Gang Welshes On A Bet: Broad St. Hockey
With the first game of the Jeremy Colliton Era under the Hawks’ belt in less than thilling fashion, the team leaves for the East Coast for a two-game Metro Division swing. The Hawks find a team in the Flyers who could probably use the recently departed Joel Quenneville’s services.
Before diving into this needlessly vitriolic piece, a few baseline things need to be established. One – there is nothing empirically wrong with Gritty as a mascot entity. It’s fine, it’s silly, it’s unique, it’s harmless, and it’s ultimately for children. Second, this may come as a shock to some readers, but my political leanings are basically just center of communist. The only thing that could have actually gotten me to the polls earlier in the week would have been if there were guillotine referenda on the ballot. And now with those two facts in place…
Fuck Gritty, and fuck the slack-tivist Left for turning him into some kind of meme-machine cultural icon for the #Resistance and Antifa. Perhaps this is a case of living inside a bubble and how I have curated my own social media experience, but there seems to be an onslaught of promotional material aimed at YOUNG PEOPLE on the left containing fan art of Gritty dedicating himself to the plight of the proletariat and bringing capitalist pigs to justice. It was so prevalent that even a publication with its finger so far up its own ass it can barely find the pulse of anything else, the New Yorker, ran a feature story on the phenomenon. But there it was one tweet in particular that simply made all of this a bridge too far and solidified the internet’s collective ability to beat something to death within mere moments:
The @NHLFlyers just crossed the Ritz-Carlton picket line in Boston.
I am disgusted and feel betrayed. #MarriottStrike #PHIvsBOS pic.twitter.com/s4T2byTKUd
— Brett "Solidarity 2025" Banditelli (@banditelli) October 25, 2018
It’s extremely difficult to tell whether this post is ironic in tone or not, but either way there is a tremendous disconnect here between those with internet brain worms and what the reality of the situation actually is. First of all, the thought that a fucking mascot has anything to do with the logistical operations of a professional SPORTSBALL team is laughable. Not to mention the fact that the chances of an NHLer going rogue for the cause of something he’d seen and been made aware of on Leftist Twitter is so far fetched it’s insane. Nearly 99% of NHL players are in all likelihood MAGA chuds because a) they stop attending school in 8th grade b) they come from rural areas which bend heavily conservative, and c) they’re basically all rich which makes one pathologically averse to wealth redistribution or even taxation of any kind.
And even if all of this weren’t true, it makes zero sense to attribute any of these tenets to a logo owned by a team in a sport which is arguably the most racially and economically exclusive of any of the “major” North American team sports, which in and of themselves are a cesspool of rape and entitlement culture. Not to mention that the Flyers specifically, are a subsidiary of Comcast, a borderline monopoly that cannot wait for net neutrality laws to be fully repealed so that they can price gouge even further and reap even bigger profits despite the fact that internet access has reached the point of being a utility out of its necessity to modern life. What’s more, Ed Snider, the Flyers’ former chairman who sold a healthy stake in the team to Comcast (and is dead and assuredly burning in hell for all of eternity) personally donated huge portions of his substantial wealth to virulent right wing think tanks like the Ayn Rand Foundation and The Atlas Society, and tried to destroy every labor union he ever came across, including the NHL players association. And for fuck’s sake, because this is Philadelphia being discussed after all, it’s a solid bet that the guy that’s actually in the goddamn costume itself has got a Facebook page filled with Blue Lives Matter memes and routinely throws around homophobic slurs when hanging out on South Street.
The counter-argument to all of this would be that using Gritty is re-appropriating a corporate logo for a nobler purpose and that anyone who indirectly gets involved in the community because they initially found the memes with the orange googly-eyed creature amusing is a net benefit. Which, ok, sure, but the energy spent on writing Gritty revolutionary slash-fic with intricate illustrations would be better spent throwing a brick through the window of the Comcast Center.
Game #17 Preview Suite
