Posted by andru2797 on 12/14/2010 9:28:00 AM (view original):
Yes peter, I've been a Hawks (and Jeremy Roenick) fan all my life. The first game my dad ever took me to was a Habs-Hawks game at the forum. Until then he always used to tell me how great of a team they were, how many cups they had etc. so, being a naive little kid I thought they were the best hockey team around. The Hawks beat them 5-2 that night, and I remember being so impressed that the Chicago Blackhawks beat the best team in hockey, that I adopted them as my favorite team. The rest is history. Now for the 7 years between playoff appearances (2002-2009), afcorse there wasn't much to be happy about concerning the Hawks situation so I was cheering for my favorite player (Roenick) or any Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup.
As for the Hawks history, you're obviously just trying to get a rise out of me, because I think you're a smart enough hockey fan not to really believe ANY of the original six teams don't have a rich history.
So many people forget that until the late 90's the Chicago Blackhawks had the second longest running playoff appearance streak in North American sports HISTORY (only 1 behind the Boston Bruins). They were also home to some of the greatest players of their era (Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita, Tony "O", Pierre Pilote & Chris Chelios come to mind). Granted they don't have the Stanley Cup Championships the Canadiens, Maple Leafs or even the hated Red Wings have, but any player who's ever put on that jersey has been damn proud to play for the Chicago Blackhawks (except maybe Theo Fleury, lol).
Cough.....sputter.................Well let's see, I guess if we don't count Fred McLaughlin, the original owner, who's hockey knowledge coming in made Gary Bettman look like Sam Pollock. McLauglin spent most of his tenure badgering Calder everytime the Hawks lost a game, wanting to change the rules. The Hawks almost folded when Norris's upstart AHL team came to Chicago with a better product. And then we can discount in the 50's when the Hawks were owned by Wings owner Norris as a who cares, fill the league schedule, minor league team. And then we can forget that after finally starting to build something nice, Chicago went from the cream of the league in 1967 to a losing team finishing behind the....................Vancouver Canucks in the 1975 Smythe, the most drastic decline of the original six (Detroit and Toronto were already too old in 67). Sure they lost guys like Hull and Stapleton to the WHA, but why did they? Oh, that would be Bill Wirtz. So let's discount Bill Wirtz's whole life while we're at it, as a black mark on Chicago and the NHL.
So yeah, other than that roughly 80 year period, The Blackhawks do have a rich history. In fact, I think you pretty much summed up their highlights in about 3 lines up above. I mean, I can't imagine a team doing much worse in a 6 team league or against expansion teams who weren't allowed to have any NHL calibre players because teams like CHICAGO had the rights to them all. But what do I know?
12/20/2010 8:57 PM (edited)