Yeah, it was a bad contract, but its much deeper an issue than this. Toews and Kane never turned into Federov and Yzerman. Along with other issues.

Look, a LOT of people bought season tickets as an investment. It kind of became Wrigley West Side. Suddenly the Cubs are great and its a better investment than the Blackhawks. No reason to keep your Blackhawks season tickets. The Blackhawks are what the Red Wings have been post-Yzerman.

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I thought when Seabrook signed it wasn't bad at the time. I remember reading he played close to 7500 minutes out of 10500 with Keith since 08 or so. The only reason I remember that is that's crazy. It looks terrible now because we are stuck with him for another 5 or 6 years and he plays maybe 20 minutes again and doesn't seem to want to do that. He's fat and he doesn't give a shit.

Just be honest, you think he's got a hot ass.

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his ass might be as big as mine right now. Sharp was hot til he left, still pretty hot, just less hot.

You wish you had Seabrook's ass.

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L.A. face with a Thunder Bay booty

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The guy is a little odd in person. My good friend mentioned he had a Blackhawks tattoo and Seabrook decided to take his shirt off to see it. Unrelated to that. if you ever talk with Toews, he has some unbelievable stories about Juniors.

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Toews didn't play junior, he played prep/college.

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Like he said...Unbelievable

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'Your AT&T Universal Card has arrived'? Oh God, Kick-fucking-ass, I got a Master Card! I don't believe it, man. Life is kinda cool sometimes.

The correct word CH has used in the past is "library". I have only been to one blackhawks game....it was late in the 2015 season. Hawks lost by one goal in regulation. Good game, but not good enough. At times there was excitement, but plenty of dead space where it was unbelievably quiet. I've been to games in Dallas, Tampa, Nashville, and Columbus....all our louder....even at slower moments of the game.

What we have here is 2 factors....1) stadium design 2) Ticket Prices / corporate ticket holders. It's doubtful you can solve #1, but you can (if you want...do something about #2. If the Blackhawks want to continue to milk ticket prices, they'll continue to have empty seats combined with corporate stiffs drinking in the concourse. I love hockey....I'd love to go to more games, but for the wife and I to go we're looking at $300-400 for one game. No Thanks. To take my kids for a game, $400-500 for one night out. I make decent money, but I have my limits....especially when I can get a group of friends together to watch the games at home and spare the headaches of commuting to the city. Suburbs win again.

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yep

I definitely did not like the contracts when they were signed. Granted, we all expected the salary cap to go up but its been 3 years since those contracts kicked in and they are still the highest cap hits in the league. That is a gross miscalculation. It would have been nice if Bowman negotiated those contracts a little tougher. Not saying he had to pull an Yzerman but the Hawks did not need to sign them as soon as possible. And we have never known how much say McDonough has had in these contracts. Who cares if they can roll the signings out in the summer and keep the Hawks in the news? Kane and Toews wanted to stay in Chicago as well. Maybe a little harder negotiation results in slightly better contracts. Maybe that allows them to not have to dump TT in the Bickell trade. All these slight overpayments add up.

Bowman just never seems to "win" any deals. 1988, Seabrook, Panik, and Ruuta are perfect examples. And it took several seasons for people to come around on Crawford's contract. Hell, the only reason Hammer gave the Hawks a good deal was because he felt bad over signing the offer sheet in 2010.

Bowman has done a very good job drafting but he has been terrible at resigning players.

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

Odd criticism for sure. Both Hossa and Keith contracts were signed to blatantly cheat the cap. Front-end very friendly and then pray for Lidstrom longevity, retirement or IR in the back-end.

Toews has been the worst offender in not earning his salary. $10M for a grinder. Blech

Get this...these fuckers...

My son's team might play during one of the intermissions. You think fun, great experience right? Except they want to charge the team/family $95 per ticket. I can find tickets for half that anywhere. They said oh it's a premium ticket. I got news for them, there are no premium tickets. Assholes. I'll buy my own fucking ticket.

You can go on Stubhub and get a ticket for cheaper than parking now.

I guess the $7 student ID tickets of my youth will be returning at this rate.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

Bet the Bulls are doing GREAT, though!

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Seriously, fuck this team right now. I hope people stop going, just so Rocky fires McD and Stan. Fucking hand out NMC to assholes left and right...

The NHL is panicking over the Winter Classic right now.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

A lot of fans in Chicago are morons and will pay top dollar for a shit product. How else was Wrigley filled every game since the late 1980s?

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

It was a bad choice, but bad choices have come to define the outdoor games in recent years. It's effectively a neutral-site game, and getting to South Bend from out east seems like it has to be a pain in the ass. It's not even that convenient to get to from here. I suppose they figured even Boston Irish are magnetically drawn to Notre Dame or something. The only neutral-site game that makes sense to me is Penguins and Flyers at Penn State, but the stadium may not even have the infrastructure for winter usage, so that's out.

The league killed the golden goose when they did like eight of these in one year and burned off too many sites at once. And then you have NBC's allergy to originating a New Year's game in Canada; that the Bruins were even allowed to host the Habs in Foxborough in one of the most storied rivalries in sports is a minor miracle. So you rule out Canada, you rule out the bottom-dwelling American teams, and all you can do is cover the same Chicago+Northeast ground over and over. Of course, that would be fine if the NHL accepted that it's a Canadian/Northeastern/Midwestern league, but they still think they have a national U.S. footprint.

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Holy shit Spaulding, that sucks.

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Oh, I forgot, the dumbest Winter Classic was when Buffalo hosted the Rangers at Citi Field, the idea being that the Rangers deserved to host but for tax-break purposes can't get out of playing at MSG unless they go overseas. This Notre Dame game might end up being dumber if no one comes, though. If it's a worst-case-scenario shitshow that humiliates the organization and league, I could even see it getting McDonough fired.

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I don't get why they'd book the Blackhawks for it in the first place. Doesn't matter where it is. They weren't going to be any good this year.

Because the only teams with anything remotely approaching a national (American) footprint are the Blackhawks, Bruins, Penguins, Sabres, and Red Wings. The Flyers and Rangers have fanbases that are large in number but don't range too far beyond the home territories. The Capitals are somewhere in between those because people like Ovechkin but people outside the mid-Atlantic don't really care about the franchise. So your options are pretty limited here. The Rangers and Sabres played last year. The Bruins are due for a road game because they've hosted at Fenway and Foxborough and the Blackhawks are due for a home game because they visited Nats Park and Busch. Pens-Flyers is being held off for a non-New-Year's outdoor game.

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How anal are they about enforcing SRO seats at the UC? Is it like Wrigley where there's a 75-year old woman who fucked Andy Frain back in the day guarding each aisle like her Social Security payments are depending on keeping you out of her section? Or is it normal and easy to slide into an empty seat once you figure out who the no-shows are? (Which in turn is easy to do by checking Stubhub the morning of the game)

I'm thinking about going to the Jets game next Friday night because I might be staying overnight downtown anyway. SRO is $13 plus taxes, a regular seat is something like $35+ taxes.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

Not hard to sneak in seats. They are just glad you are there at this point

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"YOU GOTTA BE BLEEPING ME"

They're not dead yet

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Fools Gold, this team.

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