Everything Else

Friday Foofaraw: My Hockey Mixtape

By Sam Fels 2002 0

This is admittedly an idea I stole from St. Vincent, whose ITunes Radio Show I just discovered. But hey, if you’re going to steal, steal from the best. Anyway, on her show she creates a mixtape/playlist for people who call in and describe their situation in life. So because we spend a lot of time talking about music here along with hockey, I thought I’d share a playlist of songs that I associate with hockey and the Hawks. 

“Ocean Size” – Janes Addiction

They’re not particularly hockey, but when I first started going to the standing room at Chicago Stadium my brother was listening to “Nothing’s Shocking” constantly. Like, all the time. And one summer I went to Yellowstone and met my cousin for the first time, and though I was told he only listened to rap he was listening to this album all the time as well. It was basically everywhere. So when it was time to get into the car and head to 1800 W. Madison, this was the album that was on for my first handful of visits.

“Outshined” – Soundgarden

If you were in the Old Stadium, and you got there for warm-ups (and chances are if you did the first you were doing the second), the playlist was intoxicating to any child desperately wanting to think he was cool and tough (was not either, still not either). It was actually somewhat modern, and it was loud, and you were watching a bunch of nutcases get ready for whatever nonsense the Hawks and North Stars would cook up while a bunch of nutcases in the stands were already on their third beer and piling through their personal Connie’s pizza (god I miss those). To say it was charged would be an understatement. And the opening riff for “Outshined” basically had everyone frothing at the mouth in the building a good half an hour before puck drop. And no, the Hawks haven’t really updated the playlist since.

“6′ 1” – Liz Phair

Going to start jumping around here a bit, and I know this one might stick out a bit. Although if you don’t have this album then your life quite simply is short. Anyway, I was listening to this song far too loud in my car on the first warm day of spring 2009, going far too fast on Lake Shore Drive, and any Chicagoan will tell you that’s the exact time and place to be listening to music far too loud. The Hawks had just won Game 5 against Vancouver in Vancouver, Killion and I had to go to his office downtown on a Sunday to do a radio interview in Vancouver with the Pass It To Bulis guys because it was the only place we knew we could both use a landline. The Hawks were going farther than we ever expected, my stupid little program had turned into a wilder success than I ever would have anticipated, and there I was on The Drive. One of the happiest times of my life, and whenever I hear this song I think of that and Bolland’s goal in the dying minutes of the 3rd period.

“Saturday Night” – Kaiser Chiefs

You do a lot of stupid things when you move into your first apartment. And generally, the apartment itself is stupid, and mine was no different. A shitty little studio in Lakeview, and like everyone else’s first apartment it was mostly stereo and CDs. The other thing I couldn’t wait to do was to get NHL Center Ice for the first time, as that was never going to fly living with my father. And that was the first time I ever saw Hockey Night In Canada. While it shouldn’t have been that epic of an occasion, this was the tentpole of the sport coverage-wise, and now it was like I was in the club. At least for the first few times or years, when it first gets cold and you settle in to watch Hockey Night In Canada after ordering a pizza and cracking open a beer, with the chill outside actually feeling refreshing, there is something special about it. Anyway, I was listening to this album a lot then because I was silly, but this song is still pretty cool.

“Reunited” – Wu-Tang

This was the album I was listening to when I finally chucked it on the Hawks. It was in the car the last game I went to for years, a 3-2 loss to the Flyers where Alex Zhamnov scored in the opening 20 seconds and then the Hawks never looked like scoring again (they somehow did). I didn’t enter the UC again for something like four years. Not that this song or album are a bad time or anything.

“Oblivion” – Mastodon

The soundtrack to most of my first year doing CI. McClure introduced me to Mastodon, sitting on the same two barstools we sat on for most of the first two years we knew each other. My father walked in on me headbanging to this while claiming to be working more than once. And it certainly was pregame music heading to the UC that year for at least 25 home games.

“Rudi Can’t Fail” – The Clash

Best goal song the Hawks ever had.

“You Shook Me All Night Long” – AC/DC

Second best goal song the Hawks ever had.

“On A Plain” – Nirvana

I simply refused to listen to this album for the first few months of its release because of the ubiquitousness of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” everywhere. Visiting my brother for his college graduation, he made me take it in. Needless to say it was playing a lot when the Hawks made their trip to the Final, and certainly even more to get over the feeling of losing it so badly.

“Jammin’ Me” – Tom Petty

“Hockey is like Tom Petty. Life is just better when that’s in it.” – The Elder Fels

 

 

 

 

Everything Else

Gustav Forsling’s Surgery And Absence Makes Me Wonder Why The Hell I Should Care

By Sam Fels 2419 0

I don’t know how it ends up you have this a full three months after your season ended, but…

 

So whatever plans you might have had for the Hawks’ defense that included Forsling, you can put them on the backburner for now. Forsling will miss training camp and the beginning of the season, as just his recovery would have him only practicing again in the middle of November. That assuredly will take place in Rockford, as Forsling had long been cast there to end last season and unless the blue line is even bigger clown dysentery than we think it will be, he’s going to stay there.

Which sucks for Forsling, as this is something of a make-or-break year for him. We know how the Hawks sour on prospects, generally, after a certain amount of time in the organization. This would have been Forsling’s third season at least floating around the periphery of the roster, and now he’s going to have to wait until likely 2019 to even be in that position again. And that’s assuming some other player doesn’t take his spot (*cough* Jokiharju *cough*).

Personally, I’m having a hard time locating a fuck. Even at Forsling’s tender age and experience-level, they have flashed something somewhere to make you think what the future could be. Really, Forsling hasn’t done that at all, except for maybe walking the blue line once in October. He was horsed consistently in his own zone and never looked offensively dynamic enough to counter that. Put it this way, even when Nick Leddy was having his skull turned into pudding in his first year or two in the NHL, you could see the skating and vision. Forsling hasn’t even come close to that. If I squint I see maybe Kyle Cumiskey. And I don’t want to see Kyle Cumiskey. Neither do you. I had enough the first time.

Now looking at the training camp blue line, there are the three veterans in Keith, Seabrook, and Murphy. There’s free agent signing Brandon Manning, doing whatever it is he does. Jan Rutta is still here for reasons Stan Bowman can no longer or remember or understand. Forsling’s injury makes it easier on Erik Gustafsson to make the top-six, which is…just…great. It also opens up a path for Jokiharju to make the roster, and really I don’t know what the Hawks would be holding onto by not letting him at this point. Beating up on children isn’t going to do anything for his development. And they can tell Blay Killman to do one because he’s only here to go out drinking with Ian Mitchell when he arrives in the spring of ’19 or fall of ’20.

Who’s excited?

Everything Else

The Ballad Of Corey And Summer Break

By Sam Fels 2701 0

It wasn’t that we were ever going to learn a whole lot from the Convention and when Corey Crawford appeared (forced to appear?). If anything it only added to the confusion, and pushed us to being more convinced that when he’s not ready for the camp, or even for the season, the Hawks are going to fully put the blame on him. And it sounds like that will be more and more unfair.

Let’s get the stuff on the ground first before we try and sift through the higher-concept stuff. After the season, both Stan Bowman and Joel Quenneville said that they fully expect Corey to be ready for training camp. Q referenced “reports” they get, though who these are from or what exactly they are, no one’s going to be able to tell you.  And if you’re even more confused as to why a coach would need a “report” on his own player you’d hope he had any kind of relationship with, I’m going to have to leave you in that body of water because I have no tow-rope of an answer for you. They’re might not even be any such reports. And what’s clear now is that neither individual actually spoke to Crawford himself. Which isn’t encouraging.

Because if either had spoken to Crow, they probably would echo what the man himself said. He said that it’s a possibility he could be ready for camp, he’s progressing, he hopes he is, but that he can’t promise that. He really has no idea. So why do the coach and GM? Why are they making pronouncements that clearly don’t line up with what the player himself is feeling? The only explanation is that so they can dump this on Crow when he’s not ready, except at no point did either Stan or Q say, “Corey has told us he’ll be ready for camp.” They just said it, based on these nebulous “reports.” And I guess they want us top believe either that they don’t have Corey’s phone number and can’t ask him themselves, they never called him, or he didn’t return their calls/texts. Quite frankly, it’s a load of shit and when the Hawks try and pin this on Crow you should be angry at them, not at the player.

It’s easy to understand the frustration of the ambiguity of this. But you also get the impression that Crawford and the Hawks are dealing with something not all that common, and that’s if we leave it as just head trauma. If he blows out a knee or requires rotator cuff surgery, we have some frame of reference for the recovery of that. What we clearly have entered into here is something that can’t be tracked or has little precedence.

It won’t do any good to dip more than a toe into the pool of simply wild rumors and innuendos about what’s going on with Crow (hmm, that’s a lot of water references. Doesn’t that mean death in dreams? I’m in some trouble here). Some of it is really out there. But if even a shred of them have some truth, then this is a deeply personal thing, and quite frankly we don’t have this right to know exactly what’s going on. Even just a head injury is personal in that A. recovery from it is completely dependent on the player B. the risks are so great. Perhaps some players can plow through the idea that their life will be forever changed after they’re done playing (and when you’re over 30 as Crow is that’s really not all that far away), but there shouldn’t be an derision of a player who is also considering that in their recovery to make sure they’re 100%. Considering all that Crow has already accomplished–two Cups, what should have been a Conn Smythe, a couple of Jennings’ trophies, a World Cup and representing his country–he could be forgiven if he spent a little time wondering if there was that much left for him to do and whether putting his long term health and happiness on the line was really worth it.

Quite simply, if Crow is dealing with more than that–and I have honestly no idea if he is and no one I know who is plugged is seems to either, but we all hear the same whispers from the hinterlands to the jackass at the rink bar–than the Hawks seemingly pinning this on him is wholly wrong. And it was wrong when they did it after the famous Rise Against show, though they might not have known everything they were dealing with then. If there is something personal at work here–and again, I have no idea if that’s the case–I don’t see how saying one thing about him and then having him to at least tamp that down himself so that he looks like he’s not living up to expectations helps him in any way. It shows a nearly unconscionable lack of understanding. And maybe from that Rise Against happening there’s always been a separation between Crow and the Hawks and a lack of trust from both sides.

And I don’t know what the point of having him at the Convention was, either. There isn’t anyone who is or isn’t going to buy a ticket to that museum of freaks based on whether Crawford is going to be there or not. Having him there means he’s going to have to talk, and this is a situation where more quotes really aren’t going to help. And if he wasn’t going to parrot the message the Hawks have been sending out all summer, why did they send out that message? At least Crow knows he’s important enough that he doesn’t have to go along with what they’ve said about him, but this is yet another thing the Hawks have completely borked and ended up with several substances on their hands and no handiwipes around.

Sure, Hawks fans are getting a bit riled because there’s so little information we can trust out there. But at the end of the day, is it really our business? Do we have that “right?” I don’t think we do, especially when it comes to certain ailments or problems. If the Hawks were going to be vague anyway, they could have protected Corey better by saying something more like, “He’s dealing with a serious injury/matter/issue/whatever, we and him both hope he’s ready for camp but the most important thing is that Corey takes care of himself, and we support him fully in whatever he feels he needs to do that.” Instead we get this, team and player saying different things and no one knows where to turn. How is this better?

-So this is the point where things will go a bit dark around here. August is clearly the dead month on the hockey calendar, and we could all use the a break. If something happens, we’ll of course write about it. If Hess wants to bitch about Colts training camp, and you know he does, he’ll write about it. If Pullega needs to put a curse on all of us, he’ll do that. If Rose finally wants to reveal she’s Chicago Party Aunt, she’ll do that. But for the next few weeks, let’s say things will be sporadic so that we feel a bit more freshened up for training camp and season previews and all that good stuff. But don’t you worry, our Bears Roundtable before the season starts will of course be done. Anyway, take care and we’ll talk soon.

 

Everything Else

Friday Foofaraw: Our Definitely World Famous Blackhawks Convention Primer

By Sam Fels 2361 0

It’s that time again! The last happening on the hockey calendar before we head into the summer doldrums and awake for training camp. It’s in the no way at all kitchy, greedy, utterly creepy Blackhawks Convention! We don’t want you going in there blind, so let us provide a guide for all the goings-on this weekend:

Friday

5pm Opening Ceremonies

Every year I hope this is the one where Eddie Olczyk’s hair just gets up, lights a cigarette, and walks off for good. Maybe this is the one. Anyway, watch Eddie try and be overly dramatic for every introduction while they players sweat their balls off behind the curtain being forced to wear the jerseys on a summer day in an overstuffed ballroom. All for the privilege to come out and wade through the teeming masses that they assuredly don’t want to touch but have to (a curious role reversal for Garbage Dick). You have to love that this is called “Opening Ceremonies” for not a sporting event but one meant to drive cash while a bunch of people stand around.

8pm – The Second City

Oh good, time for my yearly rant on why Second City (and IO) are trash outfits. No matter how talentless you are, Second City will run you up the ladder of classes and shows as long as you keep paying. For every Tina Fey or Steve Carrell they produce, there’s a 100 people less funny than the dude in the break room at work you’ve fantasized about taking a scythe too. And a good portion of them will be at this natural disaster, trying to prod stiff and bewildered hockey players through an improv sketch. Oh, and are you surprised Adam Burish is part of this? If Burish couldn’t skate he definitely would have been an IO regular 15 years ago.

Saturday

9am – The Breakaway

Oh man,  if you thought you had enough of Rocky and McD blowing themselves, just you wait, fucko! There’s a goddamn book! They’ll be pushing this “Inside Story of The Wirtz Family Business and The Chicago Blackhawks,” as if there was anymore to it than being born on third, manipulating local laws and taxes to shelter your liquor and real estate business, and falling ass-backwards into a ready-made Cup contender because your father just happened to kick it at that moment. Cunning strategy, really.

10am – Hockey Operations

We might not get the Bowman, MacIsaac, MacIver, and Bernard fatal four-way when we finally find out who was responsible for the Trevor Daley idea, but it wouldn’t matter because McD is going to wander in halfway through this and declare himself the winner and take all the questions.

10:45 – Goal Scorers

Oh sweet lord. A vapid, Trump-supporting, Kid Rock-loving loudmouth in Jeremy Roenick and Patrick Kane together. This is sure to attract the highest quality person.

11:45 – President’s Forum

Oh you thought “The Breakaway” would be all the self-fellating from the top? Guess again, shitbag! McDonough gets one forum all to himself, hopefully taking time out from bullying his employees but no guarantees, to tell you what a great job he’s done in the past 11 years. If anyone asks a tough question, please ignore him shitting himself. He’s a genius, don’t you know?

12:30 – Blackhawks Family Feud

This is hell.

1:15 – Kids Only

A search for the next Joey The Junior Reporter, because Joey has now discovered drugs, poetry, and girls with purple hair. He’s burned all of his Hawks memorabilia.

2:00 – Blackhawks Match Game

Believe me, the Hawks players have been playing “match game” in their heads since this thing fucking started.

2:45 – Blueliners

Chris Chelios and Duncan Keith are there to tell you what it’s like to slash a player in the face. Chelios wins because he got Paul Kariya whereas Keith wasted his moment of madness merely on Charlie Coyle.

3:45 – From Beer League To Big League

“Hey! Remember when the Hawks had a lost season because their front office forgot to assemble a blue line or get a better center than Anisimov or their coach didn’t want to play any of their young players and they had no plan if Crawford got hurt and their television ratings went into the toilet and the building wasn’t full anymore?

“Oh you do? Hmm…crap.”

“But Scott Foster! Wasn’t that fun?”

5pm – Blackhawks TV Originals

I can’t tell you what this about nor do I care to find out because anyone associated with Blackhawks TV has all the panache of a cumquat.

6pm – Blackhawks Game Show

Jesus god there’s three of these things! More Second City! If you’re a tourist from Iowa/head trauma victim you’ll be highly entertained!

Sunday

9am – The Hull Brothers

Do I have to say it anymore? It’s 9am so there’s a small chance Bobby won’t be drunk yet, but he’ll still be an irredeemable asshole. Maybe he’ll choke on his fucking wig already.

10am – Meet Your New Blackhawks!

No!

11am – Life After Hockey

Burish, Bickell, Eager, and Fraser for this one. The latter three look on impatiently while Burish finds any camera left in the hotel to get in front of.

 

Everything Else

Cheli Comes Home

By Sam Fels 3810 0

A lot of us can trace how we’ve “grown up” in our feelings toward Chris Chelios.

Earlier today, it was announced that Chris Chelios will become a team ambassador for the Hawks, leaving the Detroit Red Wings as he wanted to be closer to his family here in the area. That will make him the only team ambassador who can stand up 75% of the time and isn’t a total, raging piece of shit (though Chelios might be kind of a piece of shit but we’ll leave that for another time).

Chelios’s journey in the hearts of Hawks fans actually ends up being one of the stranger ones I can remember. Cheli was beloved here in Chicago for not only being the greatest Hawks d-man of all-time (and he is, at least until Duncan Keith retires), but by essentially being one of us. He was from here. He grew up in the old Stadium just like we did. He played like 75% of the crowd at the old Stadium would have if you’d tossed a jersey and pads on them and let them on the bench: completely unhinged, like every shift very well might be the last, and completely in the face of every opponent. Chelios was just about the toughest d-man you could find, and was simply a torture rack for any forward who came across him in the corner or in front of the net. But he was so much more than an over-caffeinated security guard. He had a hell of a shot, was a decent passer, and could get up on the play. He could do anything, really.  His pairing with fellow Yank Gary Suter was probably the best Hawks defensive pairing until Keith and Seabrook showed up. They were also major parts of the US’s World Cup victory in ’96 in Montreal.

And Chelios found himself more in the hearts of Hawks fans because he wore his distaste for the Red Wings, Blues, and North Stars on his sleeve. Sometimes to his detriment of course, because Chelios was leading the idiotic charge against the Stars in ’91 when the Presidents’ Trophy winning Hawks were too stupid to live and somehow lost to the woeful opponents from Minnesota, with dumb Chelios penalty after dumb Chelios penalty (he racked up 46 PIMs in six games, for fuck’s sake). Chelios even went on to declare he would never play for the Red Wings. Those kinds of meltdowns were common, like ’93 against St. Louis for another example.

Of course, all those things changed when the Hawks did their head-first dive into the league’s septic tank. Chelios had already seen Roenick and Belfour get shipped off for a drunk and garbage disposal run-off, and it was clear where things were headed for him. Back then players couldn’t wield much control, and the Wings were the only team that came in with an offer. That offer was Anders Eriksson and two first rounders that became Steve McCarthy and Adam Munro, and if you don’t mind I’m going to take five minutes to punch myself in the face until my nose and brain become one.

Chelios would actually spend longer in Detroit than he did in Chicago, and Hawks fans didn’t seem to want to forgive him for it for the longest time. Then again those last few years he wasn’t much more than a very slash-y, cross check-y mascot for the Wings, but it stung. I admit to being enraged when he brought the Cup to Wrigley Field during the summer of 2008. Where did he get off? Was he just rubbing our noses in it?

But this was his home. Where else was he going to bring it? Really what I was pissed at is it still felt then like I might not ever see the Cup in Chicago for the right reasons.

Were really pissed at him? Or were we pissed that yet another Hawks hero had to find success somewhere else because the Hawks were simply just too incompetent? Were we just angry that what should have happened here with a player who wanted it as badly as anyone to happen here had to happen somewhere else? My hunch is it’s more the latter.

I don’t think I’m alone when I say my moment of clarity came when he had his Heritage Night. The boos still rang out for him, because he was still identified as a Wing. But you could tell it hurt him. You could tell he thought it was time to let go. And you know… it was. And is.

Chris Chelios loved being a Hawk. He did everything he could for an organization that quite simply didn’t deserve him as a player. And he only decided to leave when it became beyond obvious it was going to be futile from there on out. He didn’t force a trade to the Red Wings. That’s just where he was sent.

Chelios isn’t without black marks. He has that DUI from 2009 (though with the Hawks that makes you head coach material). He was one of the members of the US team that destroyed their rooms in the Olympic Village in 1998 when they turned to shit in the tournament. There’s probably one or two others.

He’s also no worse than the second-best player to man the blue line for the Hawks. He was a celebrated captain. When it comes to native Chicagoans to play for the Hawks, his accomplishments and importance simply dwarf Eddie Olczyk’s. On some really, really good Hawks teams in the early and mid-90s, he was clearly the heartbeat. Really, Brent Seabrook shouldn’t be wearing #7 because it should be hanging from the rafters. It may yet still, with the two of them claiming it.

But it doesn’t, mostly for reasons out of Chelios’s hands. It wasn’t his fault that the organization became a cartoonish heel towards its fans and players (though I guess he can take a little responsibility in those teams from ’91-’95 not winning. Not ’96, when the team doctors numbed his whole leg and nuts before the critical Game 4 against the Avs and he couldn’t play. Had he played, the Hawks very well might have won that and taken a 3-1 lead and then who knows?). It wasn’t his fault he got shipped off to our most hated rival, who just happened to be one of the greatest teams the league had ever seen at that point. It wasn’t his fault that the Wings treated him as the Hawks should have. And it’s not his fault that the jealousy and bile Hawks fans carried against Detroit for so long was taken out against him.

None of that matters now. And it’s not like team ambassador is an important position. But Chelios is back where he’s always belonged. It should have never taken this long. It probably should have never happened at all this way.

Everything Else

A Restless Fourth Estate

By Sam Fels 3002 0

One day soon, I’d love to see Stan Bowman say he’s going to meet with the media and no one show up. I think both sides would probably be happier that way. He never says anything, so the media doesn’t get much to write about. And he clearly doesn’t enjoy talking to them. This is a loveless marriage where they just show up to see their talentless kid’s recital and spend the whole thing loudly exhaling, wondering how things turned out this way.

So after Day 2 of Prospects Camp, Bowman met the media yesterday and said nothing. Yes, the Hawks have more cap space, but he may or may not use it. He may be looking for another d-man, but he may not be. They may add to the team, but he might not as well. Maybe, maybe not, maybe fuck yourself. This is basically all you get from Stan ever.

And clearly some of the beats are getting a little agitated, though you can see the frustration. There’s only so many words you’re going to get out of Cam Ward, Brandon Manning, and Chris Kunitz, and all the people yelling at you on Twitter don’t know who those people are anyway. So you get this from Mark Lazerus. Or this from Scott Powers. Or maybe this from the irredeemably handsome Jay Zawaski.

And all of it seems to suggest that the Hawks don’t have a direction, or a plan, or if they do they’re not saying anything. And we’ll never know because they won’t say anything ever.

But here’s the thing, and we’ve been over this before, there’s really no reason for them to.

I know we live in a town where both baseball teams have now been as transparent as can be, and it would be awesome to be in a world where every team does that. But when you’re about to embark on a full blown tear-down and rebuild, it’s easy to be transparent. Both the Cubs and Sox had been utterly useless for years before they decided to blow it all up. It was obvious what they had to do. Everyone knew it. Once you trade one aging star with an expiring contract, even if you haven’t said anything the cat’s out of the bag and it’s clear the rest will go.

And you’re prepping your fanbase that way. You’re saying it’s going to be rough, please stick with us and keep buying tickets and we promise it’ll pay off. Chances are you’ve already stopped selling as many tickets, or any in the Sox case, and you’re basically just trying to cauterize that  wound.

The Hawks aren’t in the same place. They’re not doing a full rebuild, and we’ve been over why they can’t. It really wouldn’t do Stan any good to say to the assembled media, “Well I’m going home every night and lighting a candle in my Justin Faulk shrine and then doing a seance hoping to force  Don Waddell to fall down and hit his head on a fire hydrant on the way to work and gives me him and Skinner for Artem Anisimov and the Other Sikura.” (side note: Waddell might be this dumb anyway but we’ll find out) While those on the inside know what the Hawks are looking for, publicly declaring it only erodes leverage.

Secondly, at least not yet, the Hawks haven’t stopped selling tickets. The TV numbers might be down, but the tickets haven’t gone that way. Yet. While they may have done some padding to keep their beloved sellout streak alive, they’re still at or near capacity every night. But it’s a fragile hold. Declaring “we’re gonna be THE SUCK for a bit while we groom these kids” is going to erode that unstable foundation of fans in a hurry. The Hawks might get there anyway by New Year’s Day if they start at .500 again or worse, but they have to salvage what they can.

Thirdly, Stan can’t declare that he isn’t satisfied with his roster because what does that tell the players who show up at camp right now? What’s that motivational speech on the first day? “Well guys, here we are, I wanted to add to this misshapen dreck but couldn’t and I really don’t think you’re going to the playoffs unless God miracles your ass there, so now give us everything you got!”

Honestly, I don’t think the veterans on this team are stupid enough to not see what’s going on here, but they don’t want their GM shitting on it, too.

I don’t want to be seen to be a staunch Stan defender, though I am a defender. He’s made his mistakes, and lord knows we’ve cataloged all of them here repeatedly. But when it comes to this, even though he’s bad at talking, I don’t really know what he’s supposed to say. If he comes right out and says, “We’re looking for another d-man because our blue line currently resembles upchucked Fruit Loops, but for the right price,” and then doesn’t get one, he still gets pilloried. It looks like he’s afraid to pull the trigger.

The other problem for Stan is that when you’re a mediocre team, you have no strength to trade from. What’s the surplus on the Hawks right now? It’s not d-men. It’s not centers. It may have been shifty, fast forwards who might be middle six guys but they just traded the one they had to lose to also lose Hossa’s contract. They can’t lose Schmaltz. They can’t lose DeBrincat. They can’t really lose Saad unless it’s a knockout deal, because that would just be running in place. Now, that erosion of a reservoir of talent is on Stan, at least to a point. This again, is where losing Johns and Teuvo for literally nothing is so detrimental, Because now you don’t have anything to trade for what you need. I’d throw Danault on the list, but he was at least flogged for what the Hawks thought would be something. If you had those three players now and not enough spots to go around, you best believe you could put a package together for Faulk or even Karlsson.

That’s the problem for NHL GMs. While they’re overwhelmingly made up of morons, nincompoops, and ignoramuses (ignorami?), they have no margin for error. There’s only two trades in there that Stan had to make to lose a contract, and now he has no flexibility. So I don’t know what good talking about it would do.

Everything Else

The Comfort Or Punishment Of Anonymity

By Sam Fels 2212 0

As the Hawks’ prospects continue to toil in the West Side heat, and I assume beg adults to buy them beer back at the hotel at night, I am left to wonder what could happen with the Hawks both on and off the ice when the season starts. And I wonder what the effect of having it happen totally in the dark in the Chicago sports scene will be.

One of the things that broke the Hawks’ way, and something that had nothing to do with John McDonough and Rocky Wirtz, is that their rise from hockey purgatory to the aristocracy was perfectly timed with the collapse of the rest of the Chicago sports scene. The ’08-’09 season started just days after both the White Sox and Cubs ate it in the Division Series (the Cubs much more spectacularly than the Sox), and neither would even come close to a playoff spot for another seven seasons. Well, actually, the Sox came within three games in 2012 but you didn’t know that because no one went and no one cared. TELL ME I’M WRONG FIFTH FEATHER.

To go along with that, the city’s juggernaut, the Bears, have only made one playoff appearance in this Hawks’ era. Sure, the end of the ’08-’09 season saw the Bears trade for Jay Cutler, and at the time that was a far bigger story than the Hawks ever produced (which might be why he dropped the puck at Game 1 that year). But the Lovie doldrums persisted, and we know what happened after that. The Bulls spasmed one conference final run, where it was promptly snuffed out as soon as LeBron started guarding Derrick Rose. The Cubs run started just at the end of the last Hawks’ championship. Quite simply, for more years than you can believe now, the Hawks had the stage to themselves. They were the only story in a city that had been starved for championships…because the Sox one doesn’t count, obviously. Nor did it ever happen.

That won’t be the case this year. The Bears, whatever they’re going to be, are going to be awfully interesting and awfully watched. The Cubs likely have a fourth-straight October to navigate. Even the Bulls, who will still suck most likely, have done SOMETHING this summer, even if signing Zach Lavine is a touch weird for that money and Jabari Parker might have one knee. It’s something they can push when the season opens. There are new toys to at least carry some novelty.

So even if the Hawks were to start say, 3-7-1, the front pages of the various sports sections and sites around town aren’t going to be adorned with a picture of Quenneville looking bemused with a headline like, “There Is No Joy In Quenneville.’ (Like they’d ever come up with something that creative!) Columnists around town, even if the collection of them would struggle to define what offsides in hockey is, are not going be penning a host of works calling for massive changes. They’ll be focusing on one out pattern MITCH BETTAH HAVE MY MONEY threw against the Lions. The external pressure, other than from impatient fans in the building–and even that’s questionable given how many sell their tickets early in the season–and the yappy construction workers that act as McD’s focus group, is just not going to be there.

Which leads me to wonder if that’s a comfort or an annoyance for the Hawks. No question they loved the spotlight. But given the iffy decisions of late and some of the facade of what they are falling down around them, do they enjoy the darkness? The lack of scrutiny? Would they want real questions being asked?

Or would the lack of attention really bother them? Would they do something–firing Q or a big trade or something of that ilk–to try and get the lights back on however much they could? Would they abandon whatever plan they have if they felt they had fallen too far back in the consciousness?

One way or another, we’re going to find out what kind of hockey town they’ve actually created here, and how they feel about it when we do.

Everything Else

The More You Think About It, The More Joel Quenneville Is Doomed

By Sam Fels 3056 0

I know the folly of taking the Hawks at their word. Their pronouncements from on-high have gotten weirder and less sensical as the team’s fortunes have slipped, and even more so now that less and less people are paying any attention. This is an organization that still considers itself the cream of the NHL, and yet when it came time for the most coveted free agent in recent history to hit the market the Hawks weren’t anywhere close. To be fair, John Tavares wasn’t ever going to sign with the Hawks over the Leafs, if only on emotional reasons, but for the Hawks to not even to be in the room says a lot. And whether they’ll tell you this or not, they missed out on other targets too, though as we know the rest of those targets sucked and maybe the Hawks are lucky they didn’t have the cap space or the attraction. Ian Cole was not going to make you run to the closet and sweat through the beloved sweater in July in pride, to be sure.

Still, if we take the Hawks at anything resembling face value on what they say, which is that they will ring the changes if the Hawks don’t bounce back from last season’s what-have-ya, then it’s hard to see how Quenneville is going to survive the season. Again, that’s if you take them at face value, and I’m not here to tell you that you should.

While McDonough and Rocky have hit all the notes about last season being unacceptable, along with Stan Bowman, and McDonough has pulled his noted and solo trick of bullying his employees to let everyone know just how very red and angry he is, Stan Bowman has continued along a path of a “rebuild on the fly.” All of his quotes about what the Hawks are doing at least reference keeping powder dry for next contracts to Schmaltz and DeBrincat, and what he hopes for Sikura and Ejdsell and whoever else. He continues to push Forsling as a solution on the blue line, and as you saw at the draft they took the biggest project–though most talented player– available at that spot. The Hawks have steadfastly refused to discuss Saad or Schmaltz in a trade, keeping an eye on two or three years down the road when those players have to do the heavy lifting. Either they can’t and the Hawks will suck or they become something more and the Hawks will…only kind of suck.

Everything that’s been done has been with an eye on the future. You wouldn’t do that unless you had assurances from the higher-ups that you’ll be able to see the plan through, whatever that plan might be. If a GM was trying to sit on two chairs at once, building a team to at least be competitive if everything broke right at the moment while maintaining players and hope for the future, any team that fired said GM and brought in someone else to either tear it all up or carry out the same vision with a different set of eyes would be a team that didn’t actually have a plan or organization. That very well could be the Hawks, but they at least want you to think it’s not them.

Let’s put it this way, a GM truly on the hot seat and having his job dependent on what happens this year, and maybe even just the first half of this year, would probably act with just a touch more urgency than Cam Ward, Chris Kunitz, and Brandon Manning. Just a hunch.

So where does that leave Quenneville? We know the easiest lever to pull for any organization when things go pear-shaped is to fire the coach. Rarely does it have a huge effect, though there are examples of that, but it shows you’re doing SOMETHING. Even with a coach who draws as much water as Q. Sometimes it’s just rearranging the chairs, but sometimes it provides a lift to the players who can at least hear something different when they arrive at work.

And really, what’s Q going to do here? You forget that even before Corey Crawford went down last year, the Hawks were clinging to the last playoff spot or even the chase for that like it was a tiny crimp. They were barely .500. On Dec. 22nd, they were 17-12-5, tied with Calgary for the last playoff spot and fifth in the division. A juggernaut this was not. So if we get to Christmas again, even with a healthy Corey Crawford and one who can put up THOSE numbers after missing half of a season, and that’s where the Hawks are again is that enough? Barely scraping for the last playoff spot? You wouldn’t think so. And they could be worse than that. I can sit here and say right now there are three teams in the Central assuredly better than they are right now, and Colorado, Minnesota, and Dallas could very well be and the first two finished miles ahead of them last year. Even if the Hawks were running 4th in the Central at Christmas next season but entrenched in a wild card spot, is that enough? Is “wild card” synonymous with “One Goal?” It’s an improvement, barely, but it’s not a resurgence.

I mean… I guess the team ahead of Crawford is a little better than last year’s? It is if Schmaltz and DeBrincat take a step forward (and are deployed correctly). It is if Dylan Sikura is something more than just getting to play with Adam Gaudette in college, and/or EggShell’s AHL playoff performance portends to something more. It is if Brandon Manning isn’t just a thug, and if the Hawks can finally conjure something from Gustav Forsling or fit Jokiharju on the roster. But again, that’s a lot of ifs.

What’s more likely, all that happens or Jonathan Toews’s aging curve continues the wrong way, as does Duncan Keith’s? Brent Seabrook continues to move around like Pizza The Hut? Forsling and Gustafsson prove to be nothing more than third-pairing bum-slayers and Q doesn’t find room for Jokiharju and he gets sent back to Portland? Sikura has a rough rookie season? And most of all Crawford isn’t Crawford, or isn’t even there?

You know which is more likely, even if only 50% of it happens. So either the Hawks mean what they say, and Q is out on his ass before 2019 hits, or they’re just whistling dixie, Jerry Angelo.

It wouldn’t be much of a hit anymore. A mid-season whacking (and who doesn’t love a good mid-season whacking?) would only see Q on the books for another season and a half, and that’s something an organization constantly in the mood to tell you they’re still not profitable would consider, especially when it’s the highest paid coach in the league.

Basically, we’ll know if the Hawks mean what they say come the Holidays, or it’s likely that we will.

Everything Else

Stan Bowman Clears Sand Out Of His Eyes, Drool From His Face, And Makes A Move

By Sam Fels 4771 0

Finally, something. Thank you John Pullega for taking the Fels Motherfuck into new places and spurring something resembling action from the Chicago Blackhawks.

There’s a lot of flotsam in this trade, so here are the exact details: The Hawks send Marian Hossa’s corpse and contract, Vinnie Smalls, Jordan Oesterle, and a 2019 3rd rounder to Arizona for Marcus Kruger, the amazingly named MacKenzie Entwistle, Jordan Maletta, Andrew Campbell, and a 5th rounder in 2019. There’s a lot here. What’s sad is that there isn’t a lot here that matters.

Let’s start with what the Hawks are sending away. It was no secret that the Hawks wanted to get Hossa’s contract off their books to free up cap space that wasn’t LTIR. Hossa is never going to play again, we all know this, the Yotes need to get to the floor, and it hopes up Hossa’s entire hit. The problem is that this would have been a good idea to do before July 1st so the Hawks could have been more involved in the free agency market than picking up whatever everyone else left on the floor. But hey, we don’t shout at the rain here and what’s done is done.

Jordan Oesterle sucks. There’s no other way to say it, and though he spasmed a decent month with Duncan Keith and the Hawks could probably use more of his “KEEP FIRING ASSHOLES!” methods from the blue line in the offensive zone, the Hawks are currently stuffed with third-pairing d-men, and really anything that gets Jokiharju closer to the NHL roster should be applauded. He still is going to have to beat out Rutta and Forsling and Dahlstrom and whatever else, but hey, it’s a step.

Hinostroza is a loss. Everyone who’s been around here for any length of time knows I might be Vinnie Smalls’s biggest fan, as for a third line winger he generated top six levels of shots and chances. He’s ridiculously fast, which the Hawks need all they can get, and a positive forechecker and penalty killer. He makes shit happen. What might not ever happen is for him to have the finish to match what he creates and starts. He hasn’t at any level, though that could have come. This one might come back to haunt the Hawks, but if Dylan Sikura is everything the Hawks think he is (jury is very much still out on that one) then he’ll do everything Vinne would have done and more.

What the Hawks also get is a ton of cap space. They now have $9.3 million in space. If you can get Anisimov off the books, and Kruger’s acquisition might have that in mind, that’s $13M or so. Hey, Bobby Ryan and Erik Karlsson together this year are about $13 million in salary. Isn’t that interesting? I find that interesting.

Ok, let’s go to the other side. I’ll be honest with you, I had forgotten that the Hurricanes had dumped Marcus Kruger onto the Yotes. And the Canes had no use for Kruger at all. I can’t honestly tell you what happened there. Kruger, in only half of a season, still put up a positive Corsi-rel in Carolina while getting his usual dungeon starts. He didn’t produce offensively, because he doesn’t produce offensively. Kruger wasn’t quite as solid defensively as he was here, but a demotion to the AHL all year seems a tad harsh. Kruger is only one season removed from being the firefighter you remember here, and we know that Q knows exactly what he is. Let’s say he’s an improvement on David Kampf. And he only has one year on his deal, so if he’s another charred remains of a beloved warrior of victories past, well whatever.

The rest of this seems to be just Rockford filler. MacKenzie Entwistle, as badly as I want him to be a player so we can just keep saying, “MacKenzie Entwistle,” hasn’t really done much in the OHL and was a 3rd round pick. Let’s just say it’ll be a year or two before you see him near this team or something is wrong. Jordan Maletta is 23 and hasn’t sniffed the NHL for two organizations now. He be better get used to the comforts of Winnebago County. Andrew Campbell has played 42 games in the NHL over three seasons. Again, this is just a plug. None of this matters.

What this trade is about is the cap space. And maybe the security of Marcus Kruger on the 4th line, but at this point in his career if Kruger matters too much you’re fucking sunk. He’s not going to be The Black Knight of the playoff runs of ’13-’15 that you remember, or is highly unlikely to be.

So the cap space. As stated, it would fit Ryan and Karlsson with some rejiggering if Stan Bowman was suddenly feeling his oats and went all in. It would also easily accommodate Justin Faulk and Jeff Skinner, if one were so inclined. It fits SOMETHING. So before we can pass judgement on this deal, we have to see what the next move it results in is first.

Everything Else

The Folly Of Transparecy

By Sam Fels 2517 0

Friend of the program Jay Zawaski had some thoughts on Tuesday. This is a subject we discussed a lot last year, what was the Hawks real intent on the season versus what they told everyone it was and why there was a difference. Jay’s not wrong about anything he says here, and it is a nice thought he wishes for where the Hawks were completely transparent about what their plans are going forward.

But the more I think about it, what do they have to gain?

Quite simply, the Hawks are not going to sell more tickets if they tell everyone that they’re in the process of turning over the team to their younger players. I don’t know that they’d sell less, but their position in the Chicago sports landscape isn’t so secure that they would feel they can risk it. While telling us exactly what “The Plan” is would make us all feel better, our mental state isn’t of real importance to them. The Hawks quite simply can’t take the risk of telling their only casual fans that this season might not matter. And that’s assuming there is “a plan.”

Secondly, the Hawks can’t really send that message to Keith, to Seabrook, to Kane, to Toews, and maybe even especially to Crawford. While the organization might be looking at the days already where they’re no longer the main contributors, considering they’re the guys who pulled this organization out of the seventh level of hell they’re owed a certain amount of promises from the front office. You can’t really tell these guys that they’re going to spend the next season or two or three playing games that aren’t going to matter. Maybe they know it already, maybe they don’t, but you certainly can’t give them that message in public. And considering whatever Crawford is working his way back from (and right now “working” is just a claim), it would be truly unfair to have him bust his ass to come back to backstop a team his bosses just told everyone isn’t really relevant.

These guys are made, and I think the only way the Hawks could even consider it would be to meet with them privately and say this is where we want to go, and you have the option of being a part of it or not. These guys all have full NMCs and I doubt any of them are interested in moving, but they also might not want to have another playoff-less season or two.

At the same time, the Hawks simply can’t move them, because of the aforementioned fragility of their place in the market. Toews, Kane, Keith, Seabrook, and Crawford are still the players most fans can identify only and buy the tickets to see. You and I might go to see Top Cat’s or Schmaltz’s (or hopefully Jokiharju’s) development (because we’re sick and our lives our empty), but the guy or girl you work with doesn’t. Even if we passed through some undiscovered wormhole into a world where the Hawks could and would do a full tear-down, McDonough and Rocky are not going to stomach a season or two of a half-empty building. Not after all the back-slapping they’ve done with each other by taking the Hawks out of that by simply standing there while the roster that was already in place took shape.

However, the Hawks “rebuild” plan is flawed. You “rebuild, ” whether fully or on the fly, if you have players to build the future around. The Hawks don’t. Nick Schmaltz maxes out as a great #2 center. Maybe DeBrincat is a genuine top line scorer, and maybe he’s something of a tweener from a #1 or #2 LW. He could be any iteration of Phil Kessel, really. There’s no top-pairing d-man anywhere near ready. If you’re building a team around #2 centers and maybe 1st-line wingers, congratulations you’re the St. Louis Blues or the Minnesota Wild. And you know where that road goes and it’s nowhere pretty.

Which brings me to Erik Karlsson. If you’re a team that’s called about Justin Faulk, then you’d obviously call about Erik Karlsson because Erik Karlsson is the absolute idealized version of Justin Faulk. Sure, the Hawks would have to clear out Hossa’s contract to fit him in for this season, and then need more salary cap rises to accommodate him for the next contract he’s going to sign. But based on what’s been rumored to be the return from the Stars or Lightning, the Hawks could probably match it.

So if they’re not rebuilding, and they say they aren’t, and they’re after Justin Faulk, why aren’t they calling? Why aren’t they at least saying they’re calling? Karlsson is the quickest route to maximizing whatever you have left in “the core.” If you’re stated aim of competing every season is your actual aim, and we don’t know that it is, you’d be in on this. You would have been in on Tavares too, but the Hawks didn’t even get in the room.

McClure has a theory that the Hawks would never take on any player that would have to be paid more than Toews and Kane (which is funny in itself, because Keith has been the most important player throughout this run but that’s another discussion). Karlsson doesn’t make that yet but obviously will. I wonder if that’s the case and whether that really matters to either if they’re staring at finishing out their careers playing on middling teams.

Given what’s already on the roster, the Hawks simply can’t be bad enough to draft high enough to get a true difference maker without a shit-ton of luck either in the lottery or by getting a player of that quality in the spots they don’t generally come from. So why are those picks so important? And if everyone’s job is on the line like they claim, wouldn’t you be after the one player that basically assures everyone keeps their job? Karlsson takes this dreck and at worst it’s a playoff team with a healthy Crawford (and maybe even not). That would at least see Quenneville finish the season and Stan get to see out whatever his plan is.

But again, there’s no impetus for them to tell us. The sweaty hand-clappers and their ugly fucking kids will still be at the Convention happily sopping up whatever tripe they’re fed. There won’t be much scrutiny from a press corps that has the Cubs and Bears training camp a mere two weeks away. Quite simply, the Hawks won’t tell us what they’re doing because they don’t have to.