The Conference Final is where it feels like the warm up acts are off and the headliner has taken the stage It’s serious now, maybe because you’re halfway home and each successive win brings you closer to the end than the beginning (which I guess is always true but now you’re over the line). There’s only one game per night, usually, so you have the attention of the whole hockey world throughout the series. Even though this is the fifth time in the last seven years the Hawks have gotten this far, there’s still a tinge or an uptick in the excitement when they do. And for the fourth straight trip, they’ll be heading back to Cali.

What will they find when they get there? Today we start to find out…