So I walk into my workout room, where I air out my hockey equipment, and I look at my Chicago Blackhawks sweater (jersey) just laying there on the floor inside out. “How appropriate”, I thought.The season for us was over in March as we had been mathematically eliminated again. I looked at my jersey which had fallen much like our season did after Handzus got hurt for the season way back in October. My beautiful road sweater was inside out like the Blackhawks’ strategy in the new NHL. We bulked up on slow movers and went with a youth movement. It was sometimes painful to watch.We (Blackhawks fans) have been watching 3rd and 4th line players play our 1st and 2nd lines and AHL roster players play our 3rd and 4th lines for the last 2 years, which is a real shame.
It’s not that I think we sign bad players. Don’t get me wrong. It just seems like we expect more out of them than they’ve ever produced before. But when we do get a player that can produce, I think we put too much on their shoulders or we don’t give them talent to play with.It hurt to see my sweater on the floor inside out like that. So I scooped my Hawks sweater up, turned it right side out, and put it on a hanger and hung it in my closet. I took a minute to really appreciate how cool the Blackhawk’s jersey really is. It’s still one of the best overall uniforms of any sport if not the best. It’s very sharp and has a killer logo right there in the middle. We have the yellow C with the crossed tomahawks behind it on the shoulders. It’s very cool. It also reminds me of the great players who have worn a ‘Hawks jersey: Hull, Mikita, both Esposito brothers, Glenn Hall, Chelios, Ted Lindsay, Kieth Magnason. The list goes on. We’ve had good teams before. Hell we’ve had GREAT teams before.It was time to look on the bright side. We have 2 very fine young Defenseman in Brent Seabrook and Duncan Kieth that are really stepping up. We have Dustin Byfuglin and Cam Barker in the wings ready to come around. We have the beginning of a very solid defensive corps.We signed Marty Havlat last year. And when he was healthy he was just amazing. This next year we’ll have Jonathan Toews and I’m super stoked (yes I just said stoked) to see what he’ll bring to the table. We also have Evan Brophey coming to camp after a stand out year in the OHL, and of course our first ever #1 overall draft pick this year.We also have the chance to sign a few free agents.
With Dale Tallon aiming to sign another top 6 forward, next year might be alright. We did better this year than we did last year by 6 points in the standings and it seemed like we were still in the games we lost. I don’t remember getting embarrassed too much this year like the year before. I do remember coming in and beating the Canucks in February in Vancouver when they were playing hot and I thought we played fantastic that night.The future might be okay. Next year we might be mourning our loss in the playoffs while secretly feeling somewhat smug with the fact that we made the playoffs.
