You know we’ve really hit the hockey desert of the summer when the only news is that the Hawks have finally found an area to build their new practice facility. This has been going on for a while, two years I think, and the problem was that the land that the Hawks owned around the U.C., none had a lot big enough to fit the kind of facility they wanted. The Bulls basically took the one that would have worked, and everything else was kind of sandwiched by the pink line tracks (which should raise a question about just why the United Center doesn’t have an “L” stop, but we’ll have that discussion at another time. If you want to read more about that, check out this article.). There’s also the new office building being put up directly east of the arena complicating things.
As you’re probably aware by now, we spend a lot of time, probably more than anyone else because we’re sicker in the head than just about everyone else, piercing through what the Hawks’ front office is telling us and what we think is actually going on. Some take this to mean we think the front office is full of concrete-headed giblets, but that would be pretty moronic to think when they’re currently making their third banner in six years. But we do like to put our conspiracy theory hats on (without drunkenly yelling anti-semitic feelings at cops, though we do occasionally yell at cops [we have friends in blue]) from time to time. With that in mind, I’ve been thinking about a couple things going on at the moment, and it’s probably mostly because I don’t have anything else to do. Take these with multiple grains of salt (which still isn’t really much salt if you like to try and stop your heart as much as I do with salt). Just things I think.
We enter upon Convention weekend, and after a deep run like the Hawks just had it seems like they’re starting another party before the last one has even ended. But they probably want to give these guys a full six weeks out of town or whatever. But with the convention starting, that means it’s time for John McDonough to put on his full court press. And he hasn’t disappointed again this season.
There are a host of reasons that David Haugh could have turned himself into the latest columnist/patsy with his Duncan Keith… I don’t know, expose? I suppose that Keith could have called him out of the blue to explain why he won’t be there this weekend. But given Keith’s wariness of the press and with everything else, that seems highly unlikely. I suppose Haugh could have found out Keith won’t be there and went to find out why, but again that doesn’t seem all that likely.
I’m not sure why the Hawks couldn’t have just announced that Keith would not be attending this convention due to a personal matter and left it at that. While some adult autograph seekers would have stamped their feet about it, any rational person would have barely made a noise and moved on with their lives. After all, it’s not really any of our business.
We continue our roll through what will matter and what won’t in the upcoming season. Today we go over to longtime guy I Am Not Chico Maki and his two queries.
Will the addition of Dineen (and subtraction of Kompon) be noticed in any tangible way on and/or off the ice?
On the ice maybe. If Kompon was in charge of the power play, then we can assume that Dineen will be as well. If Kitchen takes it over, then God help us all. Anyway, the thing is it’s fun to joke about how incompetent Kompon made the power play (it’s one of Kings’ fans faves), but the Hawks did finish 10th last year with a respectable 19.5% clip. Of course, the year before that they were awful, and each year in the playoffs they’ve been pretty much woeful for long stretches.
We continue our roll through what will matter and what won’t in the upcoming season. Today we go over to longtime guy I Am Not Chico Maki and his two queries.
Will the addition of Dineen (and subtraction of Kompon) be noticed in any tangible way on and/or off the ice?
On the ice maybe. If Kompon was in charge of the power play, then we can assume that Dineen will be as well. If Kitchen takes it over, then God help us all. Anyway, the thing is it’s fun to joke about how incompetent Kompon made the power play (it’s one of Kings’ fans faves), but the Hawks did finish 10th last year with a respectable 19.5% clip. Of course, the year before that they were awful, and each year in the playoffs they’ve been pretty much woeful for long stretches.
At least I suppose. In what turned into, somehow beyond belief, into one of the dumber debates among Hawks fans in recent memory, the Blackhawks and John McDonough announced they won’t have Frank Pelico play “The Stripper” during the shoot-the-puck what-have-ya during the second intermission. This seems like the smallest of gestures, and the easiest one in the world, but at least it’s in the right direction no matter how miniscule.
Obviously I was going to use a Veruca Salt reference. Sometimes this is easy for you to predict.
I’m a little late to the party on this, but I wanted to address it badly. Last week, Red Eye ran a piece about the Hawks and their relationship with their female fans. It included a anecdote about Casey Rathunde, you can follow her on Twitter @Raedances and you should because she’s my new personal hero for asking a tough question at the convention, asking the Hawks’ brass about the Ice Crew and other things related to their treatment of women and their female fans. Of course they gave it the boiler-plate, brush-off answer, which is what we should have expected. Probably would have gotten the same thing if anyone had asked about the continual shitty ice surface.
There’s obviously a lot of talk about women in sports, women as fans, and how they’re treated by the sports leagues. I’m going to do my best to not link this to the Ray Rice stuff, because that’s a topic that needs no debate and is just a disgusting event that everyone involved should be ashamed of (and some should be in jail, but I won’t be sitting on a hot stove waiting for that one).
I suppose that with it being summer and the Hawks having already made their signings and not yet a trade to clear cap space, we have more time than we should to study the narratives they are pushing. It’s not something I consistently want to do, but they keep putting this stuff out there and some of it is just wide of the mark. And those who are supposed to stand watch and call it out are once again passively accepting and even echoing it themselves.
During yesterday’s press conference, the Hawks and the sycophants who cover them couldn’t wait to tell us that Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane took less money so that they could keep the team together (even though the team is already over the cap). Their agent told everyone that they could have asked for the maximum $13.8 million per year.
That’s nice. I’m sure they could have asked. And Stan Bowman could have laughed them out of the room.
With the aquisition of Brad “Religion” Richards, even at the cap friendly number of $2 million dollars for this season, the Hawks are now currently around $2.2 million dollars over the cap while carrying 22 players on the active roster by opening night.
This means that someone is going to have to be voted off of the island in short order, particularly with the Convention coming up in a couple of weeks. If there’s one thing that McDonough and Blunk are conscious of it’s optics, and they’d hate to have a player kissing hands and shaking babies all weekend at the Regency just to have someone’s favorite player launched, even if they technically don’t have to until opening night in October. Add that to the cover that the long holiday weekend will bring tomorrow, as well as the tendency for media types to try to bury bad news on a Friday afternoon, and it would not be the least bit shocking to see someone go tomorrow.
A few things to cover this week, some from Tuesday night’s affair and some that have nothing to do with Tuesday night.
–It only took about 15 seconds for the Capitals to put Joakim Nordstrom to the test. In their first four power plays, the Capitals were running their power play on whatever side Nordstrom was playing on. Nordstrom, understandably so, was caught in between a lot of times, having a difficult time deciding whether to take away time and space or give his man room. Skill guys like Mike Green and Alex Ovechkin chewed that up.
