So the ride's over. Across nine years, we had eight playoff berths, five conference finals, and three championships. Unless the Kings win this year and outdo us with three in five, a likely outcome, we had the best run anyone's had since the 1995-2009 Red Wings and 1993-2003 Devils, and certainly the best under the salary cap. In the grand scheme of things, the Cubs and White Sox are turning the corner and the Bears are sort of getting their shit together. Meanwhile, public opinion is about to come crashing down on the Blackhawks with the help of a radio station that's had it out for them from day one of this era. Also, the salary cap is about to utterly punish the team as well.

How long is it going to take for Chicago hockey to go back to the doldrums? Not fast enough for good dolphin, that's for sure. Like I said, this was the best organization in the NHL for several years running, absolutely firing on all cylinders, and they never really captured the city like a team as dominant as they were should have. In a lot of ways they're still seen as an obligation, a burden, something to pretend we like until DUH BEARS are good again. Will it only take one year out of the playoffs for all the hockey stuff to find its way to the backs of garages and for attendance to drop from 22,000+ to, say, a modest 16,000 a night?

Or can we expect Illinois to keep rolling on a grassroots level? Pennsylvania, despite having a team at each end for almost 50 years now, wasn't shit at player development until only very recently. Western PA didn't take off as fertile hockey ground until the '90s. We're not Minnesota, Michigan, or Massachusetts, and never will be, but will there at least be enough lasting love for the game of hockey itself to withstand a Blackhawks empire now in decline? Part of what gives me pause here is, again, DUH BEARS. We hear all about what a great football town Chicago is, as we do Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Dallas. The difference, though, is that western PA, northern Ohio, and Texas are football factories. They love college football. They love HIGH SCHOOL football like a bunch of latent pedophiles. Illinois doesn't have that top-to-bottom love for the sport of football. We just like to watch the Bears on TV. And so it may be with hockey: do we really appreciate the game, or do we just like to watch things on TV? (bum bum bum, satellite of love...) Who's gonna hang around to watch Toews make funny faces while the team finishes ninth? I get to the point where I can't be bothered with their piss-poor play while they're set for the playoffs, and I do love hockey. If I don't have the patience for the Blackhawks at anything less than an elite level, I'm not sure most of Chicago will.

It's like, appropriately enough, when the Canadian dollar was near par and Canadian NHL teams were doing really well, even attracting a seventh one to join them. Now their dollar sucks again and the league would rather not expand at all than expand to Quebec. It's like the natural order of things has been restored. No one wanted to like hockey, they just sort of had to. Now they don't have to anymore.

_________________

I'm shocked that Curious "winter is coming "'Stark is writing a death knell.

_________________
Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

I think that the amount of kids that started playing since the first good years along with their parents have made this newer fan base sustainable.

_________________
Elections have consequences.

Can't believe anyone's actually taken the bait.

_________________
Not a mult.

Have we not learned that kids playing a sport does not create a fan base?

Since I have been 8 years old and watch Gleason rip Telander for telling him because all the kids are playing soccer, its going to be big....and Bentley said "My grandkids love to play 4 square, is that gonna be big too Rick?"

Lotsa sales in juice boxes, trophys, cleats and private lessons....also a great way to get your kids to college....

Hockey is what it is, has a fan base, will be much bigger than the Bill Wirtz years, but its BY FAR the 4th sport....

_________________
"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

I get that BF but hockey seems different in what I see. I had girls that played soccer. Never once did they say lets watch it or go to a game. The younger hockey kids eat it up. Besides the start of the kids I am talking about are now already 16-18.

_________________
Elections have consequences.

No offense to Blackhawks fans, but nobody really cares where hockey in Chicago goes from here. Most people weren't interested to begin with, and without a parade a majority of those who were will fade away.

It sucks because I just learned what icing was a few days ago.

I believe the birth rates nine months from now will decrease over what they were last year and three years ago

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Just as drunk, just less cold while doing it.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

From here, they come back and win three straight and go on to win a fourth Stanley Cup.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

_________________
Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

It sucks because you go through a suburban neighborhood and see kids playing street hockey all over the way they used to shoot hoops in the driveway. It took three championships to get to this point, and it's hardly gonna take anything for it to come crashing down. At least we got the dog to walk on its hind legs for a little while.

_________________

If kids don't learn to skate when they're very young, those kids are never going to be good enough to play real hockey. And of course the problem in the U.S. is that the ponds are not frozen long in most of the country. You add in the cultural preference for other sports, and hockey will always be far down the ladder. Lacrosse seems to be taking root among the hockey-like crowds.

_________________
Hawaii (fuck) You

If the Blackhawks come back to Earth and are average for a while, there will be far fewer women on OkCupid and Match with pictures of themselves in a Hawks jersey or with "Hawks" in their username.

Curious Dolphin, apparently.

_________________

It will still be able to survive in unathlectic suburban communities where a kid can participate in a sport just because they need warm bodies.

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

If it makes you feel better, I've never seen a kid playing street hockey.

_________________
My Maserati does 186.

Yeah...what?

_________________
Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

I'm pretty sure that Curious Hair has never left the city and his complete knowledge of the suburbs comes from Wayne's World.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

i was at a birthday party back during the NFL playoffs and the Blackhawks were playing around the time of Steelers/Broncos. This one woman there, otherwise friendly and cordial, could not stop talking about how much of a "huge Blackhawks fan" she was. 5 years ago, she probably didn't even know Chicago had a hockey team. or thought it was the Wolves.

Going by his references to riding Metra to/from the city, CH lives somewhere out in exurbia, up by the border maybe? I think there's a new video game called "Street Hockey" for iOS and Android devices that CH is referencing.

And Roseanne.

_________________

The Lanford Lunchbox. A great place to eat..... if you're John Goodman.

When you do a google search of "Where was Lanford, IL located", there's a message board that tries to map it out, and I hate to say but I really got into what they were surmising.

_________________

When I went to UIC, these two Asian kids from Maryland asked me to give them a ride to their apartment. They got in my car and noticed the bowling ball bag on the floor behind the driver's seat. They said something to the effect of, "It's true that people in Chicago love to bowl like in Roseanne". I thought everyone kept their bowling ball in the car in case you wanted to bowl a few games.

_________________
Hawaii (fuck) You

_________________
Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

I admire your ability to openly admit to the things you dig.

One more. They got this.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Edit: Wrong Thread

Hawks games are really emptying out this year. Half the lower bowl as of late. I guess we've truly become the Detroit Red Wings after all.

_________________