6 posts tagged “chicago blackhawks”

Another hockey post...

I'm not going to say a great deal here, but I was pretty darn happy when the Chicago Blackhawks recently traded Jimbo Vandermeer to the Philadelphia Flyers.  When the Flyers picked him up, they said, "We feel that he brings a lot of experience, and he’s been a real good player."  The Hawks replied by saying that if Vandy was as good as they were claiming he was, Chicago would never have traded him in the first place.

That was less than two months ago.  Now, Vandermeer finds himself playing for Calgary.  Ha ha ha ha ha, Jimbo!  You suck!  You don't have the talent to play in the NHL long-term, and you were nothing but a cheap-shot artist here in Chicago.  You'll never find a true NHL home because of it.

Thank God the Hawks are going in a younger, more-talented, and HONORABLE direction with their D.  I'm sick of the goons.  Maybe Jimbo will find a job as a bar bouncer.  He's no hockey player.

As a pretty serious Chicago Blackhawks fan, I have, since I understood the issue, felt pretty darn badly about how the Hawks dissed Bobby Hull.  I'm certain it was Bill Wirtz who nixed things with the Golden Jet, as I once worked for someone like Mr. Wirtz (RIP), and it's personality that runs the show for these guys, not brains.

Anyway, one of the first things Rocky Wirtz did as chairman of the Blackhawks was to contact Hull and Stan Mikita, make up with them, and ask them to be official ambassadors of the team.  Of course, they were delighted to do so. 

Seeing Bobby Hull (for myself, the first time) again in a Blackhawks jersey last night in Montreal, celebrating the 82-year rivalry between Chicago and the Montreal Canadiens, was a moment to be cherished.  And to see Stan Mikita, who had also been ostracized, drop the puck, was also special.

Welcome back, Hull (#9) and Mikita (#21)!

Okay, so if you care, I received an email from Edward Fraser, editor at The Hockey News.  He writes, and I quote:

"Hi Dave. I appreciated your passion for the game and certainly believe you have the right to express your opinion, but we won't tolerate personal attacks on our writers, so your comment has been deleted."

Here's what I wrote (and which was quickly deleted):

"This from a former GM obsessed with drafting and trading for Russians (most of whom should never have been in the NHL to begin with -- and aren't any longer), who lied to us in Chicago (I was there, Mike, at the "Torontoesque" meeting with the fans when you told us, "We will make the playoffs this year," and then I read how you denied ever saying it), who dumped Tony Amonte still in his prime in favor of a large number of do-nothings he once managed in Toronto like Alexander Karpotsev and Igor Korolev, and whose idea of a first line winger was Valeri Zelepukin. Where was YOUR sense of humor, Mike? All I remember about you was how you made terrible trades, insisted your strength was the draft (even though all you tended to do was choose self-inflated goons like Anton Babchuk while trying to decide if the next guy you were thinking of picking was named Matt Keith or Keith Matt), and who, while in public, single-handedly personified what it means to be aloof. And ! who can forget Alpo Suhonen? One or two of the above situations might be understandable. But you were a failure as a GM in Chicago, and no one should care what you have to say about the job as GM or anything else pertaining to hockey. Haven't you found a way to put that doctorate in Russian history to use yet? Try the university. You're no hockey authority."

For those of you who know anything about Mike Smith's tenure as GM in Chicago, I'd be curious to know what you think.  Do I have the right to express my feelings without them being deleted as mere "personal attacks"?  I'd really like to know.

Anyone who follows the NHL in any serious manner knows the name Mike Smith.  I've been within throwing distance of the man, and I can assure you that he was both abrasive and conceited.  He also sucked as general manager of the Chicago Blackhawks.

Wonder of wonders, Smith has written an article on the trials of being a GM in the NHL for The Hockey News.  And guess what?  I got to comment!  Check it out.

ADDENDUM TO ORIGINAL POST: Well, whaddaya know?  The Hockey News chose to remove my comments from the above-mentioned article, so I'm no longer bothering to send anyone to that piece-of-crap bit of nonsense by Mike Smith.

Two questions for the hockey "experts" at The Hockey News: (1) Why does your new website feature so much less than your old one, as in no player photos on the bio pages (and none of the cool "insider" stuff the old website had on bio pages that actually made it worth reading), a transaction page listed by team only (you used to be able to search all league transactions at a glance and could even tell instantly which ones involved a player moving teams), and your totally phony "blogs" (you'd think someone there would know what a blog IS and what a blog ISN'T, but big companies trying to protect their image rarely get this one right)?  (2) What is the point of accepting comments when you're going to censure them?  There was no cursing, only to-the-point reasons why no one should be listening to Mike Smith about hockey.

Respect for the cynical losers at The Hockey News = none left.  You guys suck, and I'm happily posting this to every hockey group I can find on Vox.

If you're a hockey fan, particularly an NHL fan:

1.  Who is your favorite team?

2.  Which team in your team's division do you hate the most?

3.  The least?

For me, 1. Chicago Blackhawks, 2. Detroit Sucks, 3. probably Nashville, but the whole division smells quite bad.

For those of you who know nothing of the hockey world, this one probably won't mean much to you.  I'm a fan of the Chicago Blackhawks.  I follow every single move they make.  I look at their website a dozen times a day.  Until this year, I was a season ticket holder in one fashion or another for many years.

Their owner, Bill Wirtz, the man described as the worst sports team owner in history, died today.  Admittedly, when I saw the notice, I immediately exclaimed, "Yay!  Home games on television at last!"  It's sad that a man's legacy comes down to one really stupid policy -- to not air home games to "protect the season ticket holders".  Everyone knows that what it really did was to make the team invisible to the public.  No home games on TV, and away games only on cable.  Not a good move, and everybody knew except him.

It is assumed that Wirtz's son, Peter, will take over.  I was there when Peter was asked if he planned on changing this stance one his dad died, and he wouldn't answer it directly.  Likely because he couldn't.  Peter is thought of pretty highly by sports people and a class act from what I could tell.  So it's sad that the day of someone's death is a great day for hockey in Chicago.

I once worked for someone that reminded me of Wirtz.  He was looking worse and worse as he got older because of his alcoholism (or at least that's what everybody seemed to think it was from).  He would regularly take secretive and often tense phone calls from hazy-voiced guys who asked for him by first name and called all of his three sons by nicknames that no one else used like, "Johnny," instead of "John".  He raised his voice as a matter of course.  He never once yelled at me, but he regularly spoke in a very commanding tone.  It was this, that he commanded my respect, for which I respected him.  It was also because he knew his business and had done so for many, many years.  And because he "took care" of his employees like they were family.  You felt like you were family when you worked for this man.  And when he died, everything changed around that place.  Some for the better, but mostly for the worse.

I learned from working for this man that business was run very, very differently in those days.  Your boss functioned almost like a surrogate father.  This is what you hear from Dale Tallon, the general manager of the Hawks and so many others who worked under him.  Kind of like being a part of the mob.  You find that you, at last, are truly wanted.  But you are also owned in a very real sense, as well.  It comes with the territory of receiving so much.

I think I understand why Wirtz did things the way he did, even if he was a mobster (some would say so) and even if I don't agree with his point of view.  But that's what it's like working for a man who's managed to become more than just a man -- a man who will be remembered.  R.I.P., Mr. Wirtz.