They Dropped the Puck This Time...

 ... and not to start the game.

2010 was a good year for me. It started when my wife and I had the opportunity to visit London for the first time. Then halfway through the year, the unthinkable happened. My favorite sports team in the world, the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup. It was not the first time in my life they won the Cup, they won it when I was two years old, a little before I started caring about hockey and just about anything else. As far as hockey is concerned, it was indeed just a little bit before I started caring about the game as you can read here.

The Cup itself is one of the most emblematic and recognized trophies in all of sports. For starters, unlike other trophies such as soccer's World Cup, and whatever they call the thing they hand out to the winner of the MLB World Series, there is only one Stanley Cup; a new version of it is not recast and handed out for each championship team to keep.  

As such, the Stanley Cup gets around. The tradition is that every member of the Cup winning team gets to spend a day with the trophy, doing with it whatever he pleases, within reason. There are a couple of guys whose job it is to accompany the Cup wherever it goes to I assume, enforce the within reason part. 

Most players take the opportunity to share the cup with people who are special to them, often in their hometown which given the international nature of the game, means the Cup logs hundreds of thousands of airline miles every year. 

If the Cup could talk as they say, boy the stories it would tell.

Patrick Kane and Lord Stanley's Cup, Chicago, 2010

Another great tradition, in the days immediately following winning the NHL championship, the team shares the Cup with its community.

For example in 2015, after the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup for the third time in six seasons, the team's captain both then and at this writing, Jonathan Toews*, shared it with the patients at Miserecordia Heart of Mercy, a facility in my neighborhood that serves people with developmental disabilities.

On June 26, 2010, 15 days after the Blackhawks won their first championship in 49 years, a bit of history was made when the Stanley Cup found itself in a place it had never been, and as far as I can tell, hasn't been since, as the centerpiece of an LGBTQ+ pride parade. 

It was Hawks defenseman Brent Sopel who, with the approval of the team, accepted an invitation from the Chicago Gay Hockey Association to carry the Cup while riding aboard their float in the 41st annual Chicago Pride Parade. His inspiration to participate in the parade was to honor a young hockey player, Brendan Burke who was killed in an automobile accident earlier that year. Two months before his death, Burke had come out, and while Sopel claimed his participation in the parade wasn't to advocate for anything, he added:

...if coming here helps break down walls in the meantime, so be it. 

That act did indeed break down at least a few walls. In the words of Bill Gubrud, the founder of the National Gay & Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame, spoken in 2015:

The Blackhawks organization has been very supportive of the gay community for years, starting with the Stanley Cup being in the gay pride parade in 2010 and their numerous contributions to LGBT youth organizations and programs.

Those walls Sopel spoke of were not insignificant. While much of American society by 2010 had at least tacitly come to terms with accepting people being free to be themselves, the world of men's sports, never known for its progressive leanings was an exception, especially when it came to accepting diverse sexual and gender identities and lifestyles.

Given that, Sopel's decision to participate in the Pride Parade with the Stanley Cup was a gutsy one, which paved the way for the team's and ultimately the National Hockey League's participation in several efforts in the direction of inclusion, by accepting, supporting, and to the cynical among us, selling tickets to members of the LGBTQ+ community.

By far the most visible of these outreach efforts are the Pride nights that take place annually in every NHL rink. One of many such events teams devote every season to a particular theme or cause, Pride nights feature many different activities related to the theme. In the NHL, the most noticeable of these is players on the home team donning special jerseys celebrating the theme during their 15-minute pre-game warmup. After the warmup, each jersey is signed by the player who wore it, then offered up for auction to the fans, with the proceeds going to charity. 

In the case of Pride Night, artists representing the local LGBTQ+ community are commissioned to design jerseys which incorporate the design of the team's regular jerseys with the rainbow theme, emblematic of the community.

It's with great pride that I can say the team I've been a fan of for nearly all my life, the Chicago Blackhawks, were trailblazers in this effort when Brent Sopel representing them, proudly carried the Stanley Cup on that float in the Chicago Pride Parade thirteen years ago. 

In a perfect world, this post would end here. 

Unfortunately...

NHL Pride nights had gone off pretty much without a hitch for several years until a couple months ago. The trouble began when Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Ivan Provarov opted out of wearing the extra-colorful Flyer warmup jersey. Instead, he skipped the warmup, but did play in the game in January against the Anaheim Ducks. Afterwords, Provarov sited his Russian Orthodox religion as the reason for not wearing the jersey. In a brief post-game statement addressing the issue, Provarov said this: 

I respect everybody’s choices. My choice is to stay true to myself and my religion. That’s all I’m going to say.

Shortly thereafter, also sighting religious objections, six other NHL players chose to go the same route and sit out their teams' pre-game warmups rather than wear the rainbow-colored warmup jersey.

This was followed by four teams announcing that while they would go ahead with their own Pride Night celebrations this year, their players would not be wearing the themed jerseys during their warmup. Those teams were the Minnesota Wild, the New York Rangers, the Toronto Maple Leafs and, wait for it... the Chicago Blackhawks. 

The first three teams offered no enlightening comment on their decision. The Blackhawks however came up with a doozy, citing an unlikely scapegoat, Vladimir Putin.

Putin you see, has decreed that it is now illegal for Russian citizens to promote anything LBGTQ+. On their current roster, the Blackhawks have three players either from Russia, or of Russian heritage, and out of concerns for their safety the team says, there will be no skating with the special jerseys this year.

This is a little puzzling to me for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that an American sports franchise is caving in to the demands of a hostile, sociopathic, foreign dictator. While I understand the concern for the players and perhaps most directly their families currently living in Russia, it seems to me there would have been a simple solution that didn't involve throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Simply scratch those players from that particular game (you can do that in the NHL), and replace them with three members of the Hawks' farm team ninety minutes up the road in Rockford. I'm sure those minor league players would be more than happy to warmup in a rainbow-colored jersey in exchange for a chance to skate for one night in the big show. 

 

So why can the event? As one of the worst teams in the NHL this year, the Hawks certainly can't be all that worried about losing yet another game. My guess is that there may have been a few more players on the team who said they wouldn't participate either, and rather than upsetting the apple cart, the Blackhawks played the Putin card. 

 

Not surprisingly, since Provarov's action, this issue has become red meat for the ultra-right cultural warriors among us who are using it as an example of the intolerant-woke-fascist-predator mob "co-opting" the sport of hockey and our lives in general, with their "divisive" political message of love, inclusion and acceptance. 

For them, push back to Hockey Pride Night is a great victory for freedom of speech, religion and self-expression, something gravely missing they say in our current pinko, libtard, snowflake, ANTIFA-BLM loving, multicultural mess of a society. To the ultra-right, Ivan Provarov is a valiant hero to the cause by saying nyet to the groomers.

I beg to differ. 

For starters, I believe that publicly supporting a group of people who for centuries have been marginalized, abused, persecuted and in some cases murdered just for being who they are, is NOT a political act. It is an act of human decency. If being a decent human being is "woke", then count me in.

 

When asked after the game in Philly if he had any intention of benching Provarov for missing the warmup, Flyers head coach, John Tortorella, said no, adding that Provarov had every right to "be true to himself" by refusing to wear the jersey and skipping the warmup. 

 

That's very kumbaya of Tortorella who is known for his old school, "there is no 'I' in the word 'team'" approach to his craft. It's also surprising as the same Tortorella a couple years ago emphatically declared he would bench any player who refused to stand for the anthem as a means of protesting injustice in this country.   

 

I guess somebody "being true to himself" counts only to some folks when they agree with what the person is being "true" about.

Retired hockey star PK Subban was featured in a FOX interview where he is quoted as saying that athletes should not be forced into to being "activists".

I agree. 

I would also argue that in this case, no one is asking that of the players. Nobody expects hockey players to march in the streets, write op-ed pieces in the New York Times, or warmup in drag, the last of which is kind of a pity as I would pay good money to see that. 

As for the players refusing to wear pride jerseys on religious grounds, I would ask them to probe deeply into their hearts as well as their heads, as they listen to these words of San Jose Sharks goalie James Reimer, one of the refuseniks, edited here for brevity and clarity: 

...everyone has value and worth. I wish people knew that wasn’t just a line... I have a heart for people. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done in the past, (or) what you do..., I have my beliefs and things that I can’t personally endorse. But man, you love the person, you try and do whatever you can to get to know them...

Reading this, if Reimer is being honest, which I believe he is, he obviously has his heart in the right place. Which makes me think he hasn't thought the whole thing through. He mentions not being able to endorse things he doesn't believe in. That is not only his right but his obligation.

However, as with Brent Sopel in 2010, NHL players wearing the rainbow jersey is not in itself an endorsement of alternative lifestyles, but rather an expression of love and acceptance of our fellow human beings, which is EXACTLY what James Reimer says he believes in. Wearing these jerseys in public with your teammates is powerful symbol that the team and the organization flat-out reject bigotry, abuse and hatred. What kind of religion could have a problem with that? 

OK, plenty, but none I would ever associate with.

As such, wearing a pride jersey in the pre-game skate is no more an automatic endorsement of queerness than wearing a green jersey on St. Patrick's Day (which NHL teams routinely do), is an automatic endorsement of the Irish Republican Army.

Thirteen years after the Stanley Cup made its one and only appearance at a pride parade, some things have changed, but not much. At this writing, there is still only one current male North American professional ice hockey player who has come out, and zero in the NHL, which reflects the numbers in other men's sports.

There's no reason to believe that the proportion of gay people in sports would be much different from that of the general population, meaning there are probably at least a couple dozen closeted pro hockey players. Given that, I don't think it's farfetched to claim that male sports culture is still toxic when it comes to gay and trans people. If you don't believe me, check out the article: "Nashville Predators hold Pride Night after mass killing carried out by transgender shooter", its ludicrous premise, and the hate-filled comments it inspired, brought to us by the fine folks at FOX Sports. 

I bring that up because unlike many other fields, when the sports community takes a stand reaching out to the LBGTQ community, they are clearly NOT preaching to the choir. This means their efforts actually can change attitudes, especially among young people. 

Despite the detractors, lost in all this is the fact that there has been overwhelming support of NHL Pride nights among the players. Sadly because of the detractors, there is speculation that NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is considering mothballing Hockey Pride Night after this season. That would be a real shame.

In my view, if they are able to reach a handful of kids who by seeing their heroes wearing the rainbow colors, might think twice about their own negative views of people who are different from themselves, if they reach a handful of LGBTQ athletes to let them know they are welcome members of the community, and most important, if their efforts help make lives just a little better for a handful of gay and trans kids who are suffering with depression and suicidal thoughts, then the effort will have been worth it, in spades. 

Let's face it, haters are going to hate, that's been the story of human existence since time immemorial. It's high time we stop letting them have the final say.

*  On Thursday, April 13, Jonathan Toews most likely played his last game as a Chicago Blackhawk, capping off his brilliant 15-year career with the team.

 

Pioneers

While writing my last post, I came to a fork in the road. I chose to go down one path with the intention of coming back to the other path later in the post. That didn't happen. Here is the other path.

Devante SmithPelly, the Washington Capitals ice hockey player who was racially taunted by Chicago Blackhawks fans last week, follows a long line of professional athletes who have found themselves among a small handful of black players in their sport, and as a result. suffered indignities at the hands of fans and fellow players.

Much has been written about the abuses that Jackie Robinson endured after he became the first African American to play “organized" baseball since blacks were excluded from the game in the 1880s. His story and career, have become the stuff of legend. Less well known are the stories of the players who followed him into the majors, some of which I wrote about here. Even less known are the pioneers who became the first African American players in the other American professional sports leagues.

Kenny Washington

Like Major League Baseball, the National Football League originally featured black players until a "gentleman's agreement" was forged between owners to keep them out.  Kenny Washington, was a teammate of Jackie Robinson at UCLA on both that school's football and baseball teams. While there, Washington set several school rushing, passing, and defensive records (as players played both sides of the ball in those days), as well as being the first consensus All American from UCLA. He was considered by some to have been a superior baseball player to Robinson. So impressed by his abilities, George Halas, owner and head coach of the NFL Chicago Bears, tried to draft Washington after he graduated from UCLA in 1940, but was thwarted from doing so by the rest of the league. Washington languished in the semi-pro Pacific Coast Professional Football League from 1941 until 1945, playing most of his prime years in minor league football. When the Cleveland Rams moved to Los Angeles in 1946 and expressed interest in playing in the publicly owned LA Coliseum, overwhelming pressure from the municipality convinced the team to integrate, which they did, signing Washington on March 21 , 1946, exactly one year before Jackie Robinson became a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Jackie Robinson famously endured both verbal and physical abuse from fans and his fellow players and so did Washington. But as a football player, one can only imagine that the physical abuse from players had to be far more savage. Unlike Robinson, Washington's career in the big leagues was short lived. With five knee surgeries behind him and already past his prime when he entered the league, Washington played three seasons in the NFL, putting up impressive, but not Hall of Fame stats, which is why he isn't enshrined in the sport's shrine of immortals in Canton, Ohio. Still, Kenny Washington's contribution to the game of professional is unquestionable and he is deserving of much greater recognition. There is a movement underway to include him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but given his record on the field in the league, that seems unlikely. It would be interesting to poll current players in the NFL, a league now dominated by black athletes, to see how many of them know the name Kenny Washington. My guess is that few of them do.

There isn't a long history of segregation in the National Basketball Association only because the league wasn't founded until 1949. Unlike this country's three other major professional sports, baseball, football and hockey, (sorry soccer fans), the origin of the game of basketball can be traced to a particular moment and to a single inventor.

Time now for a brief interlude...

In 1891, PE teacher James Naismith of the Springfield, Mass. YMCA was given the task of creating a new activity to distract his bored and rowdy track and field athletes during the cold New England winter months. His boss, the head of that particular Y, had a few requirements for the activity: it had to keep the athletes in shape, it could not not take up too much space, and it especially had to be "fair for all players and not be too rough."

The new activity would be a goal-oriented game like football and hockey. To make it fair and not too rough, Naismith placed the goals, originally peach baskets, high up above the players' heads so they would be unguardable. There also was no running with the ball, it was advanced by passing it from player to player. Goals were scored by players successfully soft-tossing the ball (originally a soccer ball) into the appropriate basket without it coming out. Upon a successful score, the janitor present at the game, had to walk up to the basket then climb a ladder to fetch the ball. Following that, a "jump ball" at center court would resume the action, if you could call it that, Contrary to what you might have expected, no, the new game was not called "watching paint dry", but Basket Ball. You may think that the greatest innovation in the game of basketball was the jump shot or the slam dunk, but I give that award to the guy who decided it would be a good idea to cut a hole in the bottom of the baskets.

Here is an interesting site devoted to the evolution of basketball.

Anyway, Naismith's game was a big hit, first on the YMCA circuit, then at schools and universities, before finally turning professional . It was played by folks of all races, and evolved as most things did back in those days, in the parallel universes of segregation. But unlike baseball where white teams played black teams only in exhibition games, officially sanctioned games and even championships were held between white and black basketball teams.

One of those all black teams was the Harlem Globetrotters which began as a legitimate barnstorming team, not the circus act they would later become, and not as the team's name implies, from New York City, but from Chicago. In 1948 the Globetrotters took on the all white Minneapolis Lakers (today's LA Lakers), and the man many considered to be the game's first superstar, 6'10" George Mikan. The game took place here in Chicago at the old Chicago Stadium. The Lakers had their way with the Globetrotters in the first half, but the combination of double-teaming Mikan, and a consistent fast-break offense in the second half brought the Trotters back. The lead went back and forth in the second half and with the game tied at 59 with 90 seconds left in regulation time, Marques Haynes eluded the Laker defense all by himself, dribbling the ball until there were two seconds left on the clock. At that point he passed the ball to Elmer Robinson for a perfect 30 foot set shot to win the game at the buzzer.

While it was only an exhibition game, the Globetrotters beating a team that greatly out-sized them put to rest for good the notion that black basketball players were inferior to whites. It had the same impact to African Americans as Jesse Owens winning the gold medal at the 1936 Olympics, Joe Louis beating Max Schmeling in the first round of their second fight in 1938, and of course, Jackie Robinson joining the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Chuck Cooper

In 1949, the year after the Globetrotters' victory over the Lakers, the Basketball Association of America, the league the Lakers belonged to, merged with its rival, the National Basketball League, to form the National Basketball Association. The NBA would remain all white for exactly one year.

Settling on on the true Jackie Robinson of the NBA is a little complicated as there were actually three of them. From the 1950-51 season overview in NBA.com's encyclopedia, we learn this:

The season marked the first appearance of black players in the league. Chuck Cooper became the first black player to be drafted when he was chosen by Boston; Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton became the first to sign an NBA contract when he signed with New York, and Earl Lloyd became the first to play in an NBA regular-season game because the schedule had his Washington team opening one day before the others.

To further muddy the waters, one of the NBA's predecessors, the NBL, became integrated for a short time in the early forties during World War. II.* Unfortunately during a game, a fight broke out between black and white players, marking the end of that noble experiment.

Bringing up the rear as far as professional American sports leagues are concerned, the National Hockey League finally broke its color barrier with Frederickton, New Brunswick's own, Willie O'Ree, who broke in with the Boston Bruins to replace an injured player on January 18, 1958 for  a game in Montreal. 

There was little fanfare for O'Ree's debut. Eleven years earlier, Jackie Robinson was carefully groomed for the role he was about to be thrust into by his mentor Branch Rickey. Not O'Ree. His coach with the Bruins,  Mike Schmidt, while acknowledging the milestone, and assuring O'Ree that his teammates were all on board, told him in typical understated hockeyspeak, to put that all behind him and "just go out there and play hockey."

Willie O'Ree

O'Ree played only two games with the Bruins in 1958 before going back down to the minors. He was called back up two seasons later and played 43 games with the club. Like the other Jackie Robinsons of their respective sports, O'Ree received more than his share of racist taunts from the fans and the opposing players."Players would take cheap shots at me, just to see if I would retaliate..." O'Ree said, "...They thought I didn’t belong there. When I got the chance, I’d run right back at them."

Jackie Robinson was told by Branch Rickey that under no circumstances was he to retaliate when another player went after him, so as not to set back the cause of integration. For better or worse, fighting is an integral part of the game of hockey, at least as it is played in North America, and O'Ree was given the green light to not turn the other cheek. The worst cheap shot taken at O'Ree was right here in Chicago when my onetime hero Eric Nesterenko of the Black Hawks (as the name of the team was spelled at the time) verbally taunted O'Ree then speared him with his stick to the face, knocking out two teeth. O'Ree's stick then managed to find Nesterenko's head, setting off a bench clearing brawl. It took fifteen stitches to sew up Nesterenko's bloody head. Being hockey I have no doubt that after their penalties, both players barely missed a shift. O'Ree, a very popular player among his teammates, didn't need to fight all his battles. When opposing players would taunt or take a run at him, they had to answer to the enforcers on his team, namely Fern Flaman and Leo Labine.

While the rules of hockey allow retaliation against fellow players, the fans are another story.  O'Ree said the treatment by opposing fans was worse in the American NHL cities than in Montreal or Toronto. It seems the worst city of all, sad to say, was Chicago. "Why don't you go down south where you belong and pick some cotton" was probably one of the tamer remarks hurled in his direction. He was pelted with garbage while serving time in the penalty box but he never fought back. He said: "If I’m going to leave the league, it’s because I don’t have the skills or the ability to play anymore. I’m not going to leave it ’cause some guy makes a threat or tries to get me off my game by making racial remarks towards me."

After that 1960-61 season, (the season the Black Hawks won the Stanley Cup), O'Ree was traded to the Montreal Canadiens. As that team was stacked with talent, O'Ree unfortunately never played another game on NHL ice, but he did continue to play professional hockey in the minors, finally hanging up the skates for good in 1979 at the ripe age of 44.

Unlike Kenny Washington who died in 1971. Willie O'Ree lived to see the day when the contributions of pioneer black professional athletes were rediscovered and finally appreciated. In recent years, O'Ree, who is still very much with us, has received countless honors and awards including the Lester Patrick Award for outstanding service to hockey in the United States, and the Order of Canada, that nation's highest civilian award. Since 1998, Willie O'Ree has served as the director of Youth Development for the NHL/USA Hockey Diversity Task Force. As you can imagine from his job title, the goal of the organization is to promote the game of ice hockey to new audiences, especially in minority communities, and to encourage the participation of these groups in youth hockey. One might look at the numbers of black players in the NHL today (averaging out to about one player per team) as evidence that the Task Force is barely sputtering along. That is until you realize that after O'Ree's days were done in the NHL, no black player stepped on NHL ice for another thirteen years.

Hockey has indeed come a long way since the days of O'Ree's youth when, as a teenage baseball player,  he got to meet Jackie Robinson at Ebbets Field. When O'Ree mentioned that his true love was hockey, Robinson of all people responded: "I didn't know black kids played hockey."

The unfortunate taunting incident that took place in the United Center a little over a week ago, and the public's strong reaction against it, is a good indication that like hockey, society has come a long way since these pioneers broke into their respective leagues, but still has a long way to go.


* Integration was something Major League Baseball could and should have done during a time when there was a player shortage due to World War II. While the poobahs still deemed it unacceptable for blacks to play professional baseball, the majors fielded a child, sixteen year old Joe Nuxtall, and a one armed outfielder, Pete Gray during the war. That proved to be the final slap in the face for supporters of the integration of the Major Leagues which finally took place on April 15, 1947.

It Never Gets Old

This year I didn't have to go far to become a part of the Chicago Blackhawks victory celebration, it all started when I hopped on the L...

... and then it turned out the victory parade would roll by the back door to work.

They said somewhere in the neighborhood of two million people showed up in Downtown Chicago yesterday to take part in the celebration, but hiding inside the office popping out when I heard that the parade was a few blocks away, I only encountered a fraction of them. My colleagues who ventured out at lunch told me they witnessed several drunk people (at noon), throwing up. My son who was with some friends a few blocks away smelled pot smoke. But everyone who I encountered behaved themselves, just happy to be a part of history, and to catch a glimpse of their heroes in the red Indian head sweaters, and the Stanley Cup.

There's something unique about that thirty five pound chunk of metal which since 1925 has been the prize de jure of the National Hockey League. Unlike other trophies in professional sports, there is only one Stanley Cup, they don't cast a new one every year. That means every team who wins the championship has to give it up the following year, unless of course they win it again. That hasn't happened since the Detroit Red Wings won it in consecutive years in 1997 and 1998.

The Stanley Cup pre-dates the NHL by 25 years. The Cup, pictured at the bottom center of the photograph below, was donated by the Governor General of Canada, Lord Stanley.

The Montreal Hockey Club, first winners of the Stanley Cup, 1893

If it's not immediately recognizable, that's because of the seven tiers that have been added to accommodate the names of each player on every team that has won the Cup. Each player also gets to spend a day with the Cup. Usually they choose to share the Stanley Cup with their home town, which given the international character of the game, could be at any corner of the world.

If it could, the Stanley Cup would have lots of stories to tell. It no doubt made the rounds at watering holes around the city immediately after the Hawks won their third championship in six years. Before it appeared in Chicago's Loop yesterday, Jonathan Toews, the captain of the Blackhawks, shared it with the residents of  Miserecordia, a local institution in my neighborhood that serves people with developmental disabilities. Thousands of Chicagoans will take the opportunity to see and even lay hands on the Cup in the following weeks as it calls this city its temporary home,

Thursday was the fourth time I laid eyes on the Stanley Cup. The first time was in 1992 at the old Chicago Stadium where I saw it hoisted by Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, and the rest of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Two years later I saw it carried by Mark Messier at the New York Rangers Championship Parade on Lower Broadway in New York City. I wouldn't see it again until 2010 when Patrick Kane hoisted it aboard a double-decker bus on its way to Tribune Tower and the first Blackhawk championship celebration not in my lifetime, but certainly in my memory. This year it was Patrick Sharp, Brent Seabrook, Duncan Keith and his young son, who had the honor of accompanying the Cup through the streets of Chicago, en route to the official rally at Soldier Field.

There were lots of downtown workers who grumbled about the inconvenience surrounding the event. The poor behavior of a small percentage of individuals who showed up, mostly teenagers and young adults, confirmed in some their worst feelings about sports and sports fans. Some folks even expressed outrage that a meaningless event such as a sports championship could capture the imagination of so many people, when there are so many other pressing issues in the world.

They could all be right. On the other hand, aside from the end of a war, I can't think of a single event that can bring together so many people of different backgrounds, for no other reason than pure joy and celebration. In a clip that went viral, on the night of the championship, a local news reporter looking for someone to interview encountered an African American man wearing a Blackhawks tee shirt. He asked the man how he felt and the response was "You know how awesome they are? They got black people loving hockey, ain't that something?"

On Facebook, a friend expressed how much he wished his dad were still alive so he could enjoy the Blackhawks championship. On several occasions on this site, I've expressed the same feelings about my dad who above all other sports, loved hockey, and passed that love along to me. For three times in the last six years, I have thought long and hard about my late father and how happy he would be with this team and their success.

And as has been my tradition after these three championships, after the game on Monday ended I looked up to the sky, raised a glass of good Czech beer, and toasted my dad by saying:

"Nazdravy Tati."

Adieu mon Capitaine

I was deeply saddened when I learned of the passing of Jean Béliveau this week. During my youth, he was the great centerman and captain of the Montreal Canadiens, the hockey team that broke my heart every year. The worst year of all was 1971 when my beloved Black Hawks finally made it into the Stanley Cup finals AND brought that series to the brink, a game seven which was played in the old Chicago Stadium. Those were the days before TV, well at least as far as watching hockey played in your own city was concerned. Despite the game's being  broadcast nationally in prime time on CBS, it was blacked out in Chicago because of Arthur Wirtz, the owner of the team. Old man Wirtz, the father of legendary tightwad William "Dollar" Bill Wirtz, and the grandfather of the team's current owner, Rocky, banned TV broadcasts of Black Hawks' home games for fear of losing paying fans in the stands, incredibly, even the Stanley Cup final game. So my father and I hunkered down around the radio just as they did back in the thirties, to listen to the inimitable voice of Lloyd Pettit describing the game, play-by-play.

Late in the first period, hopes were high for the first Chicago championship in my own memory as Dennis Hull pounced on a rebound off a shot by his brother Bobby, and flicked a wrist shot into the net over the prone Montreal goalie Ken Dryden. I was ecstatic in the middle of the second period when off a brilliant centering pass from Pit Martin, Danny O'Shea blasted another goal from the point making it Hawks 2, Habs 0.

NHL President Clarence Campbell presenting the Stanley Cup to Jean Béliveau

Chicago Stadium, May 18, 1971 (AP Photo)

Now I had known disappointment before, having rooted for the star-crossed Cubs in '69, but nothing in that heartbreaking season could have prepared me for what was to come. On a power play, skating past center ice in the middle of the second period, Canadien centerman Jacques Lemaire wound up and took a what-the-heck slapshot from about 75 feet away toward Black Hawk goalie Tony Esposito. Tony-O who up to that point made several brilliant saves, somehow couldn't get a good bead on the puck which sailed past him for the first Montreal tally. The momentum as they say, shifted; it was as if all the air was let out of the Stadium after that fluky goal. Later in the period, Lemaire forced a turnover deep in the Hawk zone and fed the puck to Henri (the Pocket Rocket) Richard, who scored the equalizer. Then with a little over two minutes to play in regulation time, Richard hustled past ailing Hawks defenseman Keith Magnuson, and scored what would prove to be the championship goal.

Thanks to YouTube, you and I can now watch what no one in Chicago, save for the 20,000 or so folks who filled the old barn on west Madison Street up to the rafters, saw that evening, May 18, 1971, forty three years ago:



I was brokenhearted, however deep down I had tremendous respect for the Montreal Canadiens. When I was a kid, they won the Stanley Cup just about every year, sometimes even twice a year, or so it seemed. To this day the legendary names, Maurice and  Henri Richard, Jacques Lemaire, Guy La Fleur, Jacques Laperriere, Yvan Cournoyer, Rejean Houle, Serge Sevard, Guy Lapointe, J.C. Tremblay, and Bernie "Boom Boom" Geoffrion, still send shivers down my spine; the mere mention of them evokes nothing short of perfection.

But the name that stands above them all is Jean Béliveau. Béliveau was not a human highlight reel like his linemate, Yvan (the Roadrunner) Cournoyer, or Guy Lafleur who broke in with the Habs the year Béliveau retired. In contrast, with his movie star good looks and  6'3" frame, tall for a hockey player especially in those days, Béliveau, was all style and elegance, He made everything he did look effortless.

Jean Béliveau added substance to the style as one of the most respected players in NHL history. He was by all accounts, a tremendously generous player, who put his team first above his personal stats. His calm and positive demeanor and his quiet leadership skills made him a natural choice for the team's captain in 1961.

Off the ice he was a beloved figure, a truly genuine man. Finding something negative written about him would be a difficult task. This week the internet has been filled with tales about his kindness, generosity, and humility, things that seem to be lacking from most of today's sports stars. In Keith Oberman's tribute which you'll find below, he compares Béliveau to Joe Dimaggio, only with modesty and a sense of humor.

In 1970, the Canadiens found themselves out of the post-season, which is really saying something in hockey where just about everybody makes the playoffs. It was time he felt to hang up the skates, but his General Manager, Sam Pollock would have none of it. He talked Béliveau into hanging on for another year, convinced that new talent, including Lafleur, plus the return of their great captain, would help turn things around.

Béliveau took heed of that advice and returned for the 1970-71 season. On February 11, 1971, in a game against the Minnesota North Stars and goalie Gilles Gilbert, Béliveau scored a hat trick, the 18th and last of his career. The last of the three goals he scored that night was his 500th NHL goal, making him only the fourth player in history to reach that mark. As you can see in the video above, he brought his team yet another Stanley Cup championship. That's him in the clip, hoisting the Cup in front of 20,000 disappointed, but awe-inspired Chicago fans. That turned out to be the last game of his marvelous career.

Here are the stats:

507 goals
712 assists
1,219 points
Named team captain in 1961
1 Art Ross Trophy (NHL scoring leader)
2 Hart Memorial Trophies (Most valuable player)
1 Conn Smythe Trophy (Playoff MVP)
13 time all star
17 Stanley Cup titles (ten as a player, seven as an executive with the team)
Elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1972 where they waived the standard waiting period
Awarded the Order of Canada in 1998

Last Friday night in Chicago, across the street from the site of his last game, there was another contest between the Canadiens and the Blackhawks (note the change of spelling). These days, the fortunes of the two teams are reversed, the Hawks are now one of the elite teams in the NHL, and the Habs are a good team on the outside looking in. Before the puck was dropped, PA announcer Gene Honda paid tribute to the great Béliveau. A spontaneous cheer went up among the partisan Blackhawk fans in a hostile arena who know and respect the history of the game. You could hear a pin drop when Honda asked for a moment of silence. Topping it off, John (Mr. National Anthem) Cornelison, sang "Oh Canada", in French.

M. Béliveau, a revered figure in Canada, especially in Quebec, will lie in respose for two days in the Bell Center, the current home of the Canadiens, which replaced the revered Montreal Forum years ago.

Fittingly, he will receive a national funeral on Wednesday at Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral in Montreal.

Here's Keith Oberman's tribute:

 

Thinking back on my childhood, Jean Béliveau was most likely my third greatest sports idol, just behind the two local heroes, Ernie Banks and Stan Mikita. He was the personification of cool, of grace under pressure, a gentleman and a sportsman in the truest sense of the words.

I was never much of a hockey player, but I tried my hardest to emulate Jean Béliveau both on and off the ice.

Not a bad role model, he was the real deal.

My New Team

Long time readers of this blog, (five years old and still going strong thank you very much), know all about my affection for the Chicago Blackhawks hockey club, a team I have rooted for literally since the crib. I owe that affection to my hockey-loving Czech father; some of my favorite early childhood memories revolve around Saturday nights at home watching the team playing their "Original Six" rivals on our Zenith console TV set in living black and white. Usually once or twice a season we'd go to games at the old and sorely missed Chicago Stadium on the west side, usually in the standing room section at the top of the second balcony to watch my heros, Bobby and Dennis Hull, Pit Martin, Pat Stapleton, Keith Magnuson, and goaltenders Glenn Hall and later Tony Esposito. My greatest hero of all was Stan Mikita the great Czechoslovak-born center. The Black Hawks, as the team's name was officially spelled back in the day, won the Stanley Cup in 1961. I was around then, but at just over two years old, I have no recollection of the event. The Hawks were a very good team throughout most of my life, but wouldn't hoist the cup again until 2010. In most of the intervening 49 years, I deeply cared about the team and its ups and downs;  probably the only time I truly lost interest was when their tightwad owner William "Dollar Bill" Wirtz also lost interest. He sold off all the good players and things got so bad at the new United Center, that even the New York Times took notice. Then the old man kicked the bucket and before they laid him in the ground, his son Rocky said that things were about to change.

Rocky Wirtz was true to his word. In one of the most remarkable turnarounds in sports history, within a couple of years, the Blackhawks went from what ESPN described as the worst franchise in American sports, to winning the Stanley Cup. Last year, three years later, they won it again.

Then the unthinkable happened, I stopped caring. 

Well not entirely, This year I catch the Hawks whenever I can, but I no longer set my clock by them or hang on their every move. If they win I'm happy, but not ecstatic; if they lose I just shrug my shoulders and say "oh well." Some might say: "thank God, the old fogey has finally grown up and given up his childish obsession with sports." Unfortunately that's not the case. In reality, after fifty plus years as a Blackhawks fan, I have found another hockey team to root for. 

The seeds of change were planted a few years ago during a fund raiser for my daughter's pre-school. My wife was on the fund raising committee and her job was to organize a raffle. Among the local institutions she contacted to donate items for the raffle were all the local professional sports teams. Some simply ignored the request, while others sent token items. The Chicago Bulls for example sent several copies of the team yearbook. Not bad until we checked them out and discovered they were about four years old. They obviously used the request to facilitate their spring cleaning, The Blackhawks sent an autographed 8 x 10 photograph of forward Bryan Bickell who at the time was an obscure fourth line forward. Since then he's gained some notoriety as he scored a few big goals during their last championship run, but at the time, no one bothered to bid on the photo or the yearbooks, and my son by default got to keep them.

The only sports franchise that sent anything of value was a minor league hockey team, the Chicago Wolves. They sent tickets and a jersey. My guess is that hardly anyone at the auction cared much for ice hockey, let alone the Chicago Wolves, so we bid on the tickets and the jersey and won both, at a price well below their face value. From the time I took my son to his first game three years ago, he has been a dyed-in-the-wool Wolves fan.

I might add much to my chagrin at the outset because he came out and told me that since the Wolves were the farm club of the Hawks' despised rival, the Vancouver Canucks, he would root for that team whenever they played my beloved Blackhawks. That cut me to the core, even more than when my contrarian son years earlier proclaimed his loyalty to the Cubs. But I "manned" up to it; hockey is hockey after all, still my favorite sport to watch and to play, if badly. Since tickets to Wolves games cost a fraction of what tickets to the big league team cost, we can afford to go to five or six home games every season. We've even gone on the road with the team up to Milwaukee and Rockford, where the Blackhawks' farm club the Ice Hogs play. During those Rockford games, it was tough for me to pick a team to root for, especially since with the exception of their logo, (as ugly as sin), the Ice Hog uniforms are identical to the ones the Blackhawks wear. Rooting for the Wolves against the Hogs felt like cheating on my wife.

But not anymore. Over one million folks, the vast majority of them under 25, wearing the beautiful red, white, and black Indian-head sweater, showed up to the Stanley Cup victory celebration in the Loop last June. Due to their recent success, the Hawks have become the most talked about team in this town. My guess is the vast majority of the folks who showed up at the rally could not have cared less about the Blackhawks a few years ago, before they started to have some success. Truth be told, I have absolutely no problem with that. However, since contrarianism runs in the family, I've begun to switch allegiances.

Unlike the Blackhawks, the Wolves are barely ever mentioned in the media. Even on a local radio station whose sportscast is sponsored by the Wolves, the results of their games are never mentioned. It's not too hard to understand why. In a city with big league teams in every major sport, there's little time or interest to cover a minor league club, even a successful one. In their twenty years of existence, the Wolves have won four championships in the two leagues in which they belonged. They have never had a losing season and have missed the playoffs only four times. Given the history of Chicago sports teams, that's remarkable.

Because it is the feeder league for the NHL, the best hockey league in the world, the American Hockey League to which the Wolves belong, has to be considered one of the premier hockey leagues in the world in its own right. The quality of hockey found in the AHL, while not quite up to NHL standards, is still exceedingly high. While NHL ticket prices can be five to ten times higher than those of the AHL, the quality of the product is not proportionally that much higher.

One of the charms of minor league sports is that the players are much more accessible. After a game you can wait around the gate to get autographs or just shoot the breeze with them. More often than not, the players will oblige, especially for kids. Like players in other minor sports leagues with major league affiliations, there are several categories of AHL players. There are the young, big league-bound players who are just biding their time in the minors before they get the call from upstairs. There are aging NHL players who no longer are up to competing at the major league level, but aren't quite ready to hang up the skates. Chris Chelios and Al Secord, two former Blackhawk stars ended their careers with the Wolves. Then there are the AHL lifers, the guys who for one reason or other, will never get the chance to land a steady gig in the big show. While most of the Wolves tower over me, it was surprising to see that even with my five foot eight inch frame (on a good day), I could look over the heads of some of them. Despite all of the players being great athletes, at times situations beyond their control, (such as their size) prevents them from making it in the majors.

You can't get too attached to minor league players. Minor league clubs are constantly in a state of flux, at the mercy of the big league club who can bring players up or send them back down at will on a moment's notice. What's more, a team can switch affiliations which happened to the Wolves this past off-season. That means all the players that are under contract to the big club, which is most of them, suddenly belong to another team. In our case, the players we were rooting for as Chicago Wolves last year are now playing for the Utica Comets, and the most of the players from the Peoria Rivermen, last year's chief rival, are now playing for the Wolves.

This year the Wolves are affiliated with the St. Louis Blues, another rival of the Blackhawks, a team even more despised than the Canucks. It so happens that as the NHL regular season has just concluded, the Blackhawks' first playoff opponent will be none other than the Blues. The biggest Wolves star this season was a Czech player of Russian descent, named Dmitrij Jaskin. In the last couple of months he's been shuttling between St. Louis and Chicago and now is a regular member of the Blues.

This past Sunday as my boy and I attended our last regular season Wolves game, we discovered two stalwart players were also missing from the lineup. "Where's Keith Aucoin?" I asked my son. Aucoin, at thirty five is an old man for hockey. He's a highly skilled American born center who spent most of his hockey career as a journeyman AHL player with some stints in the NHL. Listed officially at 5'8", Aucoin is one of those players whom I could have eaten the proverbial bowl of soup off his head. For obvious reasons I have an affinity for him.

My son missed Ty Rattie, a 21 year old forward with a bright future, when he failed to show up after the game to sign autographs. It turned out both players had been sent up to St. Louis the night before as the Blues have been decimated by injuries.

That means three of our favorite players who on occasion played together on the Wolves' premier line at the beginning of the season, will likely be playing for the Blues against the Blackhawks in the first round of the NHL playoffs. Which is a bit of a dilemma for me.

Honestly, it's a nice problem to have. While the Blackhawks were competing for the first Stanley Cup in my memory four years ago, I was in a perpetual state of pins and needles and can't say I truly enjoyed the experience until the final moment when Patrick Kane's ridiculously impossible sudden death overtime shot found its way into the back of the net in game six of the finals in Philadelphia. Last year's run when they beat the Boston Bruins was much more enjoyable for me, I was so calm I even managed to miss seeing the two goals scored seventeen seconds apart that won Chicago the championship. I can now go to my grave having seen my favorite team in the world winning not one but two world championships. We Chicagoans have set the bar ridiculously low as far as sports expectations go. Cubs fans should only be so lucky.

As the NHL playoffs begin for the Blackhawks this evening, I'll be rooting for them for sure, but this year I'll also be rooting for old man Aucoin and the youngster Jaskin. Rattie for the time being is back with the Wolves, at least he was as of yesterday and we'll be rooting for him as well as the Wolves have also made it into the playoffs, and my boy and I will have at least one more hockey game to go to this year.

Hockey is hockey after all and in my humble opinion, there is nothing more exciting in sports than playoff ice hockey. Honestly could life get any better than having your two favorite teams in the playoffs?

I hardly think so.

Go Blackhawks.
Go Wolves.


POST SCRIPT:

Dmitrij Jaskin, Keith Aucoin and Ty Rattie didn't end up on the Blues' playoff roster and were back with the Wolves for the playoffs. The Blackhawks in a tough series beat the Blues in six games. When that series was over, another former Wolf, centerman Adam Cracknell also came back to Chicago. Despite the return of the NHL players, the Wolves were swept in the second round of the 2014 AHL playoffs by the Toronto Marlies.

The Blackhawks, despite coming back after being down 3 games to 1 in the NHL Western Conference Finals, lost in heart-braking fashion in overtime of game seven to the Los Angeles Kings.

Which leads me to chant the mantra of any true Chicago sports fan: "Wait 'till next year!"

Five reasons to root for the Canucks

As a lifelong Blackhawks fan, the team's having been knocked out in the first round of the playoffs by the Vancouver Canucks was not exactly what I hoped for. Yet as a hockey fan, with the exception of the outcome, the series exceeded my wildest expectations. It had everything one could hope for, magnificent skill and speed, big hits, raw emotion, good guys and bad guys (depending on which side you were on), failure and redemption, and most of all, high drama. It ended in perhaps the most compelling and exciting scenario in all of sports, sudden death overtime in game seven of a hockey playoff series, the entire season on the line, everything hinging on one goal, the next one.

In the end, certainly everyone must agree that the better team won. The Canucks ended the season with the best record in the NHL. The Hawks finishing with a respectable record, nonetheless stumbled into the playoffs. Yet in the first round of the playoffs, the Blackhawks played with grit, determination and heart, and came within an eyelash of stealing the series. I think it will go down in history as one of the greatest playoff series of all time, it was the kind of stuff upon which legends are made.

As with all good rivalries, there is much to dislike about the opponent. After game seven, Vancouver's star forward Daniel Sedin claimed that the Hawks probably didn't "deserve" to make it as far as the seventh game of the series. An interesting comment given the fact that over the course of the series, the Hawks outscored the Canucks 21 to 16. Sedin's remarks may have been born out of personal frustration as together with his linemate and identical twin Henrick, the Sedins finished the series with a pathetic combined minus 13 rating.*

By contrast, the stars of the series for Vancouver, Alexandre Burrows who scored both goals for his team in the final game, Ryan Kesler, who set up Burrows' first goal and held Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews in check throughout most of the series, and their much maligned goaltender, Roberto Luongo, who made the most important save of the series by stopping Patrick Sharp's point blank shot in overtime of game seven, all were generous in their post series comments about their worthy opponents.

Some sports fans feel compelled to root for the team that beats their team so they can at least say: "we were beaten by the champs". For me personal bias usually gets in the way, but not this year. I'll be rooting for the Canucks to win the Stanley Cup. Here are five reasons why:

1. The better team won. The NHL is often criticized for being the easiest league in professional sports to make it into the post-season. Back in hockey's "golden era", when there were only six teams, four of them made it into the playoffs. An entire season was devoted to eliminating two teams. Today, a slightly smaller percentage of teams get into the post-season, and in the Western Conference, the team with the worst record to make the playoffs, the Blackhawks, finished the regular season with a respectable 44 wins, 29 losses and 9 ties. The Canucks on the other hand had the best record in the entire league, and for credibility's sake, it would be nice if the team with the best record could win it all. It seldom happens.
2. Oh Canada. Ice hockey is Canada's game. The NHL is composed primarily of Canadian players, yet only 6 of the 30 teams in the league are based in Canadian cities. The Montreal Canadiens were the last team from north of the border to win the Cup and that was way back in 1993. The Canuck's next opponent are the Predators from of all places, Nashville. Give me a break. Montreal by the way was eliminated last night, and all the other Canadian teams have been on the golf course for the last two weeks. I think it's about time that Canada took back the Cup.
3. Roberto Luongo. Hockey goalies are special people. As an old radio commercial for the Blackhawks put it: "The puck is flying at you at over 100 miles per hour. Not only do you have to see it, you have to stop it." As a goaltender, your team, your city, and in Luongo's case your entire country's hopes all rest upon your super-human reflexes. And Roberto Luongo is one of the best in the business. But he has one achilles heel, he succumbs to pressure in big games, especially it seems against the Blackhawks. In other words, despite all his hard work and God given talents, he's human like the rest of us. Despite being shaky in the series, even terrible at times, in the end, under more pressure than anyone of us could ever possibly imagine, he came through and made that great save against Sharp. Am I a fan of his? I am now.
4. The Pathos Factor. What do an animal in distress, a drunk person walking face first into a building, and the 2003 Chicago Cubs have in common? They are all pathetic images that no decent person should be forced to witness. The good people of Vancouver have been chomping at the bit for three years now to defeat the Blackhawks. This year the Canucks won the first three games of the series and looked like a shoe-in for crushing their long time adversary. That is until their hopes all but crashed and burned when the Hawks came storming back in the series and forced the Canucks to the brink Tuesday night. Had the Canucks lost, their collapse would have been of dare I say, of biblical proportions.
   
5. Let the Rivalry Begin. It takes two to make any good rivalry. Up until this week, the Canuck/Blackhawk rivalry was one sided, we were their rivals, they were our lap dogs. Not any more. If the Canucks were hungrier than the Hawks this season, next year will be another story. As the Blackhawks found out, it's tough to be champion, every team brings it A game against you. Even the best teams have only so many A games a season. If the Canucks win the Cup, they'll find that out next year.

I can't wait.


*The difference between the number of goals scored for and against a player's team while that player is on the ice.

Can he do it again?

I'm reviving a ritual that I began two years ago, trying to coax a playoff win out of the Chicago Blackhawks. Last year of course they won the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1961. They were the odds on favorites to win that year and didn't need my help. The year before they were big underdogs and outperformed everybody's expectations. During a few pivotal games when they were trailing I wrote in this blog and as I wrote, the Blackhawks scored, took the lead, and won those games, with the exception of the last one where they lost to the vastly superior Detroit Red Wings.

This year the Hawks backed into the playoffs by virtue of the lowly Minnesota Wild beating the Dallas Stars in the last game of the season. In round one of the playoffs, against their arch-rivals the Vancouver Canucks, the Canucks won the first three games. It looked like it was all over, everyone seemed to have given up with the exception of the team. The Hawks beat the Canucks solidly in games four and five, won game six in a squeaker and forced the winner take all game seven.

Now as I write this, there are less then five minutes to play in game seven, the Hawks are down by one, and a penalty has just been called against Chicago. It looks bleak.

Wait a minute...

BLACKHAWKS SCORE!!!
BLACKHAWKS SCORE!!!
BLACKHAWKS SCORE!!!

Jonathan Toews scores a shorthanded goal. Game tied 1-1.

Overtime. Unbelievable. Let's see how this one turns out.

-

Well at 5:22 in overtime, Alex Burrows of the Canucks scored to win the game and the series. The Blackhawks' season has ended.

But they played out of their minds and went way farther than they probably had any right.

Congratulations Vancouver.

A season ending loss has never been so satisfying.
I couldn't be prouder of my team.

Provenance of a sports fan

As the Blackhawks are about to enter the Stanley Cup Finals, we come upon the rare prospect of a Chicago sports team entering a championship series. With that comes the uproar over who is a real fan and who is a Johnny-come-lately, a gate crasher, a poseur, or to put it in hockey terms, someone who thinks that icing is just something you put on a cake. This is akin to church at Christmas and Easter time when the regulars grumble over the gall of people who only show up during the holidays, taking up precious seating and parking spots.

I suppose there is something to all this. The die hard, be it a sports fan or church goer who pays his dues day after day, year after year suffering through losing seasons, or sermons, being inconvenienced by people who only turn out to reap the spoils. Or to use another hockey term, the cherry pickers.

Sadly I have to admit to being mostly a fair weather sports fan myself. My philosophy is that life is too short to put all one's emotional energy into a lousy team, especially one whose members are multi-millionaires whose loyalties lie with the highest bidder. The Sunday in fall when it becomes clear that the Chicago Bears have no chance always brings great relief to me as I no longer feel obligated to waste a perfectly good day off in front of the tube watching over-paid grown men play a kid's game.

The same is true for baseball, hockey and basketball, all sports for which I have a great passion, but not enough to live and die for a particular team as some fans.

Of course all that is out the window when one of my teams shows promise. I lose all perspective about the business of sport and concentrate on the drama, the beauty and the pure joy that sports brings to my life. Call it love of the game if you will. Few things are as exciting or as beautiful to watch as great athletes doing what they do best, whether it be a perfectly turned double play, an ally-oop pass, a sixty yard bomb, or a goalie stopping a 100 mph one timer from the slot.

So am I worthy to be aboard the Blackhawks' bandwagon now even though until last year, I admittedly had not given them much thought for well over a decade?

I asked myself that same question back in 1986 when the Bears won the Super Bowl, in the nineties when the Bulls won all their championships, and most recently in 2005 when the White Sox won the World Series. Those years I followed my teams closely, my life practically revolved around them. I shared in their ups, and died a little with the downs. Today in leaner times I still keep up with them but mostly only to listen for the score following a game.

I can't recall the exact time when I became a Bears fan, I remember listening to them in on the car radio in the late sixties and early seventies when broadcasting "legend" Jack Brickhouse and former player turned gossip columnist Irv Kupcinet were the announcers. Their scintillating commentary make today's counterparts sound downright Shakespearean. Every year the great Gale Sayers would have a few 100 yard games before getting hurt. Quarterback Bobby Douglas could throw the ball 90 yards but couldn't hit the side of a barn from 20. The immortal Abe Gibron who liked to give interviews while sitting on his throne behind closed doors (if you catch my drift) was one of the more memorable head coaches. I can't say I ever seriously followed the Bears until late in the Walter Payton era in the early eighties when they were a truly great team for one year at least. I became a Bulls fan in the early seventies when they made several serious attempts at the NBA championship. And as I mentioned in this space earlier, I became a White Sox fan in high school simply because they were way cooler than the Cubs.

In all three cases I came to these teams entirely on my own, I didn't inherit them.

This is definitely not the case with the Blackhawks. Thinking about it the other day, my very earliest memory is being in my first home, a small apartment on Humboldt Boulevard, watching the Hawks (back then they were the Black Hawks) on our black and white Zenith TV. For years that was our Saturday winter evening ritual as the Hawks played their five NHL "original six" rivals. Any worthy Blackhawk fan will have no trouble dating me as I mention the names Kenny Wharram, Pierre Pilotte, Ken Hodge, Phil Espositio and Glenn Hall, all Black Hawks at the time. Of course the real stars of that team back then and for many years to come were Bobby Hull and my first and perhaps greatest sports idol of all time, Stan Mikita.

Ice hockey was THE game in our house as my Czechoslovak father could not tolerate baseball or American football. To him those sports consisted of standing around, scratching and spitting, very briefly interrupted by moments of fleeting action.

My father loved hockey more than any other sport, especially the kind of game which was rare at that time in the NHL. He loved fast skating, crisp passing and skilled stick work, the kind of game he grew up with back home. Here hockey was much more physical, lots more body checking, dump and chase offense, and of course the fighting which he couldn't stand. Nonetheless my dad rooted for the team of his adopted home town and passed on a love of that team to his son. He was not in any way a home team booster, he called it as he saw it and was not at all interested in making excuses for them. None of this nonsense about blaming a loss on a blown call or bad bounce. If the other team was better, he'd say it point blank, even if the Hawks won the game. To him style and sportsmanship were more important than the score.

We'd go to maybe one or two games a year, almost always standing room in the much missed Chicago Stadium. It was there that we witnessed Bobby Hull's 499th and 500th goals, among other great moments. In those years, the Hawks were the toughest ticket in town. Unlike other sports franchises in Chicago in those very lean years, the Black Hawks consistently fielded a good team. They always made it into the playoffs, and made it all the way to the Finals in 1971, 1973 and 1992. Unfortunately they were never quite good enough to win it all. Then in the mid-nineties, their tightfisted owner "Dollar" Bill Wirtz decided to cash in and sell off all their stars. Wirtz's son Rocky took over the team upon the old man's death a couple of years ago and brought a new spirit and commitment to the team ending 15 years of misery for their loyal fans.

As I look at the current Chicago Blackhawks, my father certainly would have loved this team. They are the fastest skaters and the best puck handlers in the NHL, hands down. And by and large they are an admirable group of guys who are great team players.

My dad had very particular reasons for liking or disliking particular players. He'd certainly admire up front guys like Patrick Sharp and Duncan Keith. He'd no doubt be a big fan of both the skills and personality of the tacitern captain Jonathan Toews. He'd have reserved Slavic pride in the Slovaks Marian Hossa and Tomas Kopecky but certainly would not fail to lament that the Czech Martin Havlat, traded away a year ago, was better in his opinion. While he'd be an admirer of the skills of Patrick Kane, he would bemoan his habit of wearing his mouth guard on the outside as well as some of his off ice behavior. Conversely he'd no doubt like the gentle giant Dustin Byfuglien as a person, but not like his style of camping out in front of the net screening the opposition's goaltender and waiting to be fed the puck.

I can just hear our argument:
"He reminds me of Phil Esposito who I never liked." he'd say.
"But 'Big Buff's' intimidation in front of the net was the key to the Hawk's success in the playoffs up to this point, besides he's just doing what's asked of him" I'd say.
"It is selfish to just wait in front of the net for someone to pass the puck to you" retorts Dad.
"So what if it helps the team?" I'd remark.
At which point he would stop speaking to me for about a week.

The Blackhawks' opponent in these Stanley Cup finals will be the Philadelphia Flyers. Back in the seventies their dirty play earned them the nickname the "Broad Street Bullies". This version of the Bullies was only a .500 team in the regular season but have played impressively in the playoffs, most notably coming back from being down three games to none against Boston, and a 3-0 score in gave seven to win the series. They have just beaten the Montreal Canadiens who had a magical playoff run of their own upsetting both the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins and the team with the best record in the NHL this year, the Washington Capitals.

Still the Blackhawks will be huge favorites to win the Cup, which makes this lifelong Chicago fan more than a little nervous. Last season no one expected anything of them and they surprised everyone by making it to the Conference Championships. This year their motto has been "One Goal", clearly stating that anything short of bringing the Cup to Chicago for the first time since 1961 would be a tremendous disappointment.

But win or lose it has been a great ride and the team's success has given this city a reason to celebrate after a few dismal years of a terrible economy, an increase in violent crime and an overall feeling of discontent.

I'll be watching intently as this potential championship would mean more to me than the Bears', the Bulls' and the White Sox' championships combined. The Blackhawks are still my team as they have been my entire life. It would mark the first time that I share a Chicago championship with my own son who is now a huge sports fan, something I was never able to do with my own father. If in a week or two Messers Sharp, Toews, Byfuglien, Hossa, Kane, Niemi and the rest of the team who proudly wear the Indian Head sweater hoist Lord Stanley's Cup over their heads, we'll put "Chelsea Dagger" on at full volume, and looking toward the stars, I'll tip a glass of Czechvar in honor of my dad, toasting him with a hearty "nazdravy, Tati."

On thin ice...

I've never been a person who cared much about the weather. Seldom do I look at a weather forecast other than to figure out what to wear that day. Rarer still do I publicly complain about the weather. Since there's nothing I can do to change it, why bother. The big exception is as a photographer, when I need to shoot something on a given day and depend on the weather. I say a little prayer to the photography gods (yes they're up there somewhere), and curse them when they don't come through.

Today however, I find myself caring deeply about the weather. In the last week I've been looking at the five day forecasts, checking the current temperature hourly on the computer, most of all fretting because the temperature in the next few days promises for the first time since Christmas to inch above freezing.

Why am I gloomy about something that practically every sensible person in the city is thoroughly psyched about? Because I have rekindled my passion about ice hockey, not watching it, that never went away, but playing it. And the few places around town where you can simply put on a pair of skates and take a stick and a puck to the ice, will be reduced to mush.

I know there are plenty of venues around town to play the game. You can sign up for leagues at all skill levels at the numerous skating rinks around town. But that involves, time, money, and above all commitment, three things that I have very little of these days. There's also rat hockey, loosely organized pick up games which are fun but you still need the full compliment of gear and you never know who'll show up, mostly people way better than me no doubt.

What I'm talking about is heading to a park where they have flooded a half acre or so of property, and just tool around without all the fuss that accompanies organized hockey. Wonderful players show up at these places too, usually kids who are honing their skills, refining their moves, or just hanging out. I remember doing just that as a kid. I lived across the street form a park where they flooded the tennis courts every winter. One court was reserved for hockey, the other for figure skaters. It was truly heaven. I'd skate around or hours, play (badly) in some pick up games, then continue to skate long after everyone left and the lights had been turned out trying to learn the moves I saw my heroes on the Blackhawks do on TV and at the Stadium. The most illusive of all was the hockey stop, something that I struggle with to this day. But I never skated better, faster or with more confidence than after everyone had left and the lights were turned off.

This is something you simply cannot do at a skating rink with its rules and regulations, the harshest of which is, no hockey! Wonderful as they are, the skating rinks built in several of the parks throughout the city, enforce these rules as strictly as the indoor rinks. For good reason I suppose. Unfortunately these rinks with the cooling coils beneath the ice that ensure ice well above freezing, and Zamboni machines that resurface the ice, have replaced the flooded fields where so many Chicagoans learned to play hockey, at their own pace. Going back even farther, back to my long lost youth in the 60s, the big parks with lagoons all allowed people to skate on the frozen water, which always seemed to be ice for at least two consecutive months in the winter. I remember hundreds of people at a time skating on the frozen lagoon at Humboldt Park, where my father taught me how to skate and play hockey. Then it all stopped, liability issues no doubt. Eventually the winter weather became more unpredictable, we still had bouts of extreme cold, but not the sustained freeze that I remember as a child.

In short, these days in Chicago anyway, it's harder to go somewhere to play hockey at a moment's notice.

I should mention that this whole hockey craze began last month when my son discovered that he loved skating after all. Before, he was afraid to fall and became easily discouraged. Flash forward a few years, we buy him a pair of skates, took him to a skating party, and shazam, he fell in love instantly. Now he is the first kid hanging on the door to charge the ice as soon as the Zamboni finishes its work.

I remembered a park in Lincolnwood, not too far from where we live, that used to flood a field in the winter. Sure enough, they still do and last weekend I bought my boy a stick and we took to that ice like there was no tomorrow.

We did it again this evening. There were some teenage boys smoking and hanging out. Eventually they took to the ice and were fantastic players. They also turned out to be really good guys and invited us to shoot into the portable goal net they brought. Eventually they left and took their net with them. We had the whole ice to ourselves. As my boy learned his new moves, I worked on my hockey stop and all the things that give me fits. You may not believe it but I have never skated better than tonight. And though my legs and joints are killing me now, and tomorrow I probably will have a distinct limp that everyone will comment on, I have never felt so alive.

Neither of us wanted to come home. If it hadn't been a school night, we'd probably still be out there.

Does life get any better than that?