Sports, according to a lot of radical leftists, is just as much an "opiate for the masses" as a religion. I sort of share the sentiment - unless there is a Chicago team playing for a championship.
Yeah, I suppose it's shockingly provincial of me, but I was born and raised in Chicago. Actually, in Norridge, on the northwest side, right under the final approach for O'hare 27L. If you walked out our front door to the sidewalk, turned right, and walked past four houses to the cross street, there was a concrete curb in the middle of the asphalt. This side of the curb was Norridge, and the other side was Chicago. And of course, there is no such thing as a Norridgean, or Norridgedite. There is only being a Chicagoan - though if you're talking baseball, there is a difference between being a south-sider (Sox) or a north-sider (Cubs). I was definitely a north-sider - Mr. Mack next door (God rest his soul) used to take almost a dozen of us neighborhood kids to two or three Cubs games each summer. I was of an age then that I didn't think of money; but the idea of taking a dozen kids just for ice cream now makes my knees buckle. We would drive down Cumberland Ave. to Addison, park, and get on a CTA bus. Never saw my paternal grandfather on one of these Cub excursions: he was a CTA bus driver. But we would pass my maternal grandmother's house between Harlem and Oak Park, on our way down to Waveland and Clark Avenues, and "the friendly confines of beautiful Wrigley Field.
Anyway it doesn't matter if it's Da Bears, or Da Blackhawks, or Da Bulls, or Da Cubs, or Da White Sox, if they get into some sort of playoffs, I'll watch the games with intense interest. Didn't watch a single game during the regular season, but now that a Chicago team is in for the Big One, I gotta see it.
Actually, I have to confess to being particularly partial to the Blackhawks. Some relative of legendary Hawks center Stan Mikita lived about three streets down from us, and often a Sunday game of street softball or street football was interrupted by some kid screaming "Here come's Stan Mikita!" The first kid never got entirely through repeating it a second time before all the other kids were screaming it too. And we all pulled our sports gear out of the way of the big black Lincoln towncar and waved enthusiastically. Funny, I don't recall ever actually seeing Stan Mikita in the car, just the incredible enthusiasm of a large gaggle of gangly kids jumping for joy here was a Blackhawks super star we had some personal connection to, no matter how tenuous or impersonal.
Then, in high school, I was working at an auto parts store, and the store manager, Irv, for some reason took a liking to me. I always suspected that Irv was somewhat disappointed he had sired not a son, but a daughter who, well, simply was not that interested in sports, and certainly not hockey. Because Irv (God rest his soul and bless his heart) was such a hockey nut and fanatical Blackhawks fan, that he had finagled himself a position as a volunteer score keeper for one of the scoreboards at the end of the rink. This was before the days of electronic wizardry, so changing score involved swapping out two-foot square pieces of sheet metal with numbers painted on them. And of course, Irv needed an assistant - me.
Now, you need to understand that this was in the early 1970s. To be precise, you need to understand two things. These were the days when Bobby Hull was wearing the gorgeous red jersey of the Blackhawks. Hull is considered one of the greatest hockey players ever - his breakaway sprint speed was so tremendous he was nicknamed "The Golden Jet" and his slap shot was so powerful that Popular Mechanics did an article on it, clocking a Hull-powered puck at 118.3 mph.
This short 11 second clip gives you an idea of the incredible speed Bobby Hull had. He just turns on the afterburners and rockets toward the opposing net.
https://youtu.be/...
And playing next to Bobby was his brother, Dennis Hull, often as spectacular as Bobby. (The Bleacher Report's list of the 25 hardest slap shots in hockey history include three Hulls - Bobby at number 4, Dennis at number 7, and Bobby's son Brett, who never played for Chicago, at number 11). Bobby and Brett are the first father and son to be in the NHL hall of fame.
Also, in the net for Chicago during these years of my youth was legendary goal tender Tony Esposito, who was one of the pioneers of the "butterfly save."
The second thing you have to understand, is that this was when the original Chicago Stadium was still standing. When I went to games to tend the scoreboard with Irv, I often marveled at the truss beams that carried the roof over the gigantic arena. Chicago Stadium was not aesthetically pleasing inside - it was pretty basic and functional. It was made for one purpose, and one purpose only - to cram just over 17,000 screaming fans under a roof and keep them out of the weather.
But the original Chicago Stadium had another attribute, and it was one that visiting teams hated. It was called, simply, "The Roar." When Chicago fans came to their feet and cheered and screamed and stomped, the din and the decibels were simply amazing. No, beyond amazing - let me use the word "alarming." I distinctly one time sitting next to Irv, when the Blackhawks had scored - and I don't remember if it was a tie breaking goal or what the exact circumstances were - but that entire building was shaking, vibrating, swaying. I remember looking up at the trusses, fully expecting to see them jiggling and sliding sideways, off their supporting columns. I read somewhere, a number of years ago, that somebody of a scientific or statistical bent had determined that The Roar gave Chicago teams a score advantage of nearly fifteen percent.
They tore down Chicago Stadium in 1994, and built the new United Center across the street in one of the parking lots. Reportedly, before they opened it for the first game, they spent nearly a full week adjusting and tweaking the acoustics to replicate The Roar as nearly as possible. How they did it without 20,000 Chicagoans inside screeching like banshees, I don't know, but supposedly they did. Personally, I will doubt it until I finally get back to Chicago and have the small fortune now required to attend a professional sporting event to see and hear for myself.
Yeah, the Chicago Blackhawks are one of my favorite memories of childhood. And now they are in the Stanley Cup finals, gunning to win their third Cup in six years. And this would be a very significant achievement, because no other team has won as many Cups in as short a period of time since the NHL owners voted to impose on themselves a strict salary cap in 2005.
The idea of a salary cap is to prevent any one team from building up a dynasty. A sports dynasty always is a zero-sum game in professional sports. The New York Yankees are the best known example - they had so much money, they hired away all the best star players from every other team in either the National or American Leagues. Which invariably meant that most cities never, or hardly ever had a winning team. Fan enthusiasm in those cities would wilt, dragging down gate receipts, making it even more difficult to pay the talent needed to beat the Yankees ( or whoever the dynasty was).
But under a salary cap, there is income equality. Which turns out to be a good thing: everybody does better, instead of just one or two teams.
The NHL salary cap for the 2015-2016 season is expected to be about $71 million. The Blackhawks have two players - skating phenom Patrick Kane and team captain Jonathon Toews - who each will get $10.5 million, or $21 million, meaning there is only $50 million left to play the rest of the players. And the Blackhawks have a lot of players that are, well, spectacularly talented, and will be wanting a lot more money. The salary cap means that probably at least one of those other players will have to be traded to another team - and there are a lot of teams anxious to get their hands on some of that Chicago talent.
Here is Patrick Kane's hat trick (three goals scored in one game by a single player, and the fans begin tossing their hats onto the ice) in the seventh game that won the Hawks the Western Conference finals against the L.A. Kings in 2013 - in overtime, and in Chicago. Advance to around 2:30 to 2:45 for Kane's third, and winning goal, and some idea of what The Roar sounds like. You can feel the energy, even through a lousy youtube clip two years later!
https://youtu.be/...
So, of course, this salary cap poses a real dilemma for me. On the one hand, I know something has to be done to reverse income inequality generally in the national, and world, economies. So I definitely support the principle of the cap. On the other hand, I love the idea of the Hawks being declared a hockey dynasty. But they have to win the Stanley Cup first. Then, during the summer, they are going to have to make some really difficult choices, because they simply can't keep all the great players they have, and still keep under the salary cap. Someone is going to have to be traded.
The salary cap thus makes scouting and recruiting and grooming new players very important. The Hawks have some of the best scouts and managers in hockey; in fact, the father of general manager Stan Bowman is none other than legendary NHL coach Scotty Bowman, the coach with the most wins in NHL history by a sizable margin. He is currently the Senior Advisor of Hockey Operations for the Hawks.
An example of the importance of young players was in Chicago's first playoff series, against the Nashville Predators. After Blackhawks starting goalie Corey Crawford allowed three goals, coach Joel Quinville replaced him with Scott Darling, who made 50 saves and allowed only two goals, allowing the Hawks to win. Crawford gets paid $7.5 million, while Darling get less than a million. Darling played only three games in the playoffs, and performed very well, raising speculation that Crawford might be one of the Hawks veterans who gets traded to get some breathing space under the salary cap.
Stanley Cup Final 2015: How Chicago Blackhawks Are Thriving In Salary Cap Era
Folks, this is some intense hockey! The speed of play in the first period was incredible. The last two periods were noticeably slower - it's just impossible for the players to keep up that pace for an entire game. This first game between the Blackhawks and the Tampa Bay Lightning was won by Chicago, 2-1. Next game is Saturday night, on NBC.
This will be a wonderful series to watch. Now, remember, I did not watch any regular season games. But in the last series, for the Western Conference championship, there was a huge difference I saw in the style of play between the Blackhawks, and the Anaheim Ducks. I would say the Ducks play "dirty," by which I mean they body check often, aggressively, and hard. I even say a Duck player try to check Crawford when he was a few feet away from the net. Never saw anything like it before, and I thought a penalty should have been called. A Duck player would come crashing in to deliver a check, even after a Chicago player had already passed the puck along. By contrast, I saw many instances where Chicago players turned or spun away at the last split second after a Duck player had passed the puck. The Duck's hard play was deliberate and intentional: they discussed it with news media. One player said they were "investing" all the hits with the intention of wearing down Chicago players by the third period.
It didn't work, and the Hawks won in seven great games - one sports writer termed it one of the greatest playoff series ever. The Blackhawks play "puck possession" - they are not as physical as the Ducks; they keep control of the puck, maneuver more, and have some brilliant moves. It just looks to me like they had so much more finesse than Anaheim.
From what I've read, the Lightening play the same kind of hockey as the Blackhawks. And what I saw in tonight's game confirms that. There is not a lot of scoring, but there sure is a treasure trove of dazzling skating. This Stanley Cup series is something I think anyone will find entertaining to watch.
One thing that was interesting in watching the Western Conference series was to see how many Blackhawks fans were in the stadium in Anaheim. I would estimate that nearly a fifth of the people seated in the stands were wearing red, which are Chicago's colors. I saw that again tonight (the game was played in Tampa Bay). I mentioned that to Jon Larson, who runs the Real Economics website, lives in Minnesota, and is an infinite source of hockey lore and facts. He said that was true for all the original six teams.
I'll have to explain. From 1942 to 1967, there were only six teams in the entire NHL: Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Boston Bruins, Chicago Black Hawks, Detroit Red Wings, and New York Rangers. These are all old, industrial cities that have been, like much of the rest of the USA and Canadian economies, deindustrialized, and a lot of people have moved out of those places, and settled down in the Sun Belt and California, and other places where the NHL expansion teams are located. In 1966, NHL expansion franchises were created: Los Angeles Kings, Minnesota North Stars, Oakland Seals, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins and St. Louis Blues. In 1979, the World Hockey Association folded after seven years, and the NHL admitted four WHA teams: Edmonton Oilers, Hartford Whalers, Quebec Nordiques and Winnipeg Jets. In the late 1980s, the NHL began to award franchises to cities like Atlanta, Miami, Tampa Bay, Raleigh, and Dallas. I don't have much to say about that, other than having a hockey team south of the Mason-Dixon line feels to me like a violation of the natural order of the universe. I mean, like, how much ice do they get in those cities during the winter?
Anyway, the point is, there are all these NHL expansion teams located in places down south, where a lot of people from the original six cities now live. One fascinating fact about this Stanley Cup series is that Tampa Bay is the first expansion team in NHL history to beat three original six teams to get to the Stanley Cup finals. If they beat Chicago, it will be NHL history. Quite a storyline!
But, as Larson noted: "Well, it's a good thing Tampa Bay is so young. Because they have no idea what they've gotten themselves into."
So, there are a bunch of Chicago fans that show up in Tampa Bay's arena. You can get the Blackhawks fan out of Chicago, but you can't get Chicago out of the Blackhawks fan! Just like me. Silly sentimentality?
No, serious sentimentality.