Another New Idea from the Hawks

As if the convention wasn't enough, the Hawks announced they are opening the first day of Training Camp open to the public for the first "Chicago Blackhawks Training Camp Festival". The festival includes the opportunity to watch the year's first practice on the United Center Ice, a 5K race (what?), a 3-on-3 street hockey tournament and I'm sure a bunch of other activities. I think the 5K is a hilarious idea - and if I hadn't almost killed myself last night after running for the first time in months I might even sign up.

Not to sound like I'm just drinking the kool-aid the front office is selling everyone - but this sounds like another really great idea. The prospects camp, which is free every year, is a great way to get a hockey fix in summer - this sounds like another chance to get excited before pre-season games even start.

The hockey tournament is shoes only, no rollerblades. I'm guessing that has more to do with insurance..

tickets are only $5 - which is nice since preseason games are priced the same as regular season and mostly a waste of time.

Perhaps the only down side is that the players will be wearing their ugly practice sweaters...

Do any other teams do this? Do they maybe do it for free? I don't know...

The Douchebags are Coming

I can only pray that yesterday's rush on tickets was our fellow, REAL Hawk fans, out of sheer terror that refugees from the Bud Light Bleachers, as shown above, are going to take over the UC. However, I'm almost too sure that won't be the case. Now that the Hawks are going to be a story, and they will be, because the Bears and Bulls aren't even going to sniff the playoffs, Hawks games will be the place to be. I suppose we all knew this was coming, we weren't going to be a secret club forever. And the more sold out games and better atmosphere will make this an even more attractive place to play for future free agents. (This is assuming Dale doesn't screw our cap situation over for years to come, and that's a BIG assumption.) As well it will provide more revenue to afford said FA's. But you can hear the rumblings of complaint now. You're going to yell "Wait for the whistle, fuckstick!" at least 512 times this year. You're going to wonder how the mouth-breathers in the 100 level can't figure out halfway through the anthem that hey, if everyone else is cheering, perhaps I should too! You're going to call upon every reserve of energy you have to not let go a straight right at the guy who asks you if Gretzky still plays. You'll swallow the barf that will arise when the bimbo who went with her boyfriend as he got the boss's tickets asks what the blue lines on the ice mean, and refers to the periods as "quarters". These things are going to happen, my fellow followers, and we're just going to have to put up with it. It's probably preferable to when there were 7,000 of us watching Paul Kariya score his 4th goal against us of the evening, but there will come times when we won't be so sure.

Slight Change in Plans

After much discussion between the original creators of The Blue Line and myself, we have decided that because this is a second generation of this sort of thing, and a new era for Hawks hockey, The Blue Line will be having a baby, and that baby will be called The Committed Indian. It will look much like the Blue Line, and we'll still bring you the same informed, sardonic, witty, and, most of the time, rude publication that some of you know and love from the 90's, but with a new name and perhaps a new idea here and there. We'll still use blackhawksblog.blogspot.com as our internet outlet, and we'll still loathe Red Wings fans. Call still going out for anyone who'd like to help, email at committedindian@gmail.com

We've all been had...

We should have seen the warning signs.. We all knew it was too good to be true.. But the shit has hit the fan.. It wasn't Scotty that we hired... No word yet how this will effect (affect?) the team but I have a feeling Charlie could be a good 4th liner

Tickets for single games minus the Classic go on sale tomorrow but in a recent announcement we were also told us how to get Classic tickets... all you have to do is buy 150 tickets to a game and pay up front...

From a recent email -

Early Bird Special -
Get in on the Winter Classic!
Reserve your group of 150+ to a Blackhawks game (excluding Preseason & Premium games) by Friday, August 22 and have the opportunity to purchase tickets to the Winter Classic on Jan. 1, 2009 at Wrigley Field. Group tickets must be paid in full (within 30 days) in order to purchase Winter Classic Tickets. Winter Classic tickets are limited, so order today!

Can purchase two (2) Winter Classic tickets for groups of 150+

Can purchase four (4) for groups of 200+

Can purchase six (6) for groups of 300+

So.. Pensblog - you were planning on getting a road trip to our fair city right? Think you can buy 150? I'll gladly take the Winter Classic tickets you get off your hands for you..

Second City Hockey has heard rumors of Lang going to the Habs (save for something on a message board though, I haven't seen anything about that).. Nothing will happen til Sundin makes up his mind though

Anyone know what's going on in this picture?

Mailing it in again...

We should all be very thankful ESPN doesn't care about Sundin the way they do Favre... That's about the only reason we should be happy that hockey isn't as popular in the USA as football or baseball.

Al Cimaglia talks about the same topic that Sam did a few days ago - but in a much longer post with way fewer jokes. It's a good read though but it's about 28 pages long - none of you would have ever read something we wrote if it was that long but you should give his article a shot. It's good.

Also, I think you should go read this over at HockeeNight...

Finally, since there's not much else to write about - I'm stealing shit from other sites again... Pensblog has been posting great motivational posers so I thought I'd give it a shot

You can make your own if you click here - email me your creations and I'll post them here..

Montreal.. what the fuck guys?

First you riot after beating a team in 7 games that you should have beat in 4... 5 at the most..

Now you fucking steal all the Stooges equipment?  Granted Iggy is pretty lame now.. but what did Mike Watt ever do to you?  

Still no word on when Winter Classic tickets go on sale... thanks Gary.  

Just a Taste...

I hope this is the kind of stuff we can consistently provide you here and inside the Blue Line when it returns, hope you enjoy:



(Click to enlarge.)

On Goalies...

NHL.com has an article about Huet "relishing" the opportunity to come and compete for the starting job here in Chicago.

It's basically a bunch of bullshit but here's the one interesting piece. Tallon has still not talked with Khabby yet since signing Huet. Tallon says, "he's in Belarus, and it's hard to get a hold him there".

You're paying a guy $6.7 million and he can't afford a phone?

It seems to me that Khabby would be the kind of guy that would get pretty pissy about the whole situation and sulk for a while. Even if he is part of training camp I can't imagine he'd be fully in it. He's gotta want out just as bad as we all want him out...

Khabby to his agent: "Trade me right fucking now!"... then hang up

There's also this...

While it’s rare for a team that already has a No. 1 goalie under contract
to make such a bold offer to another clear-cut No. 1 goalie on the free-agent
market, it’s also rare for the free agent to sign knowing playing time was not
part of the guarantee.

Huet is apparently a different breed

So I guess NHL writers are paid just to agree with whatever the GMs say.

It seems obvious to anyone that a player like Huet wouldn't be coming to Chicago unless he's promised the #1 job. Granted he could easily beat out Khabby for the starting job anyway...

Check the official site if you want to hear Tallon make a joke that only he thinks is funny and a bunch of reporters who are obviously very sick of the Hawks having a press conference every fucking week..

Some very rare praise for Detroit...

Well.. rare praise from this (or any other) Chicago blog or fans.. 

I, like any other good Hawks fan, can't stand the Red Wings.  I hate the team more than any other.  I love when the Hawks beat them, so last year was especially nice.  Their fans annoy me more than any other teams (except maybe the Flyers for some reason).  But I've also got to say, I hate how fucking good they are.  They make the right trades, get the big free agents and always seem to pick some guy in the late rounds of the draft that ends up being one of their best players.  I can't even remember the last time they didn't win the division - though it didn't hurt that the rest of the teams have been pretty weak.  ESPN and other sources may have a big hard-on for the Braves of the 90's.. but the Red Wings actually win championships.  Man, I hate them...

But hate them as I do, I have to really give them credit for the way they've acted in letting Bowman come join the Hawks.  While I doubt they would have been quite as understanding if his son wasn't working here, they've shown they are a class act organization.  Still, I hope we beat them 8 times this year...

The thing I'm most excited about having Bowman here for is the guidance he'll have on Savard.  Some seem to think that Bowman will be a threat to Savard and could become the next coach, but I think it's pretty safe to say Bowman doesn't want that role again.  He's an amazing hockey mind, but he's also in his mid-70's... I don't think he'd want to go back to the high pressure situation.  I might be in the minority, but I actually think Savvy has been a good coach.  He's not great.. He makes mistakes.. He still needs to learn.. but who better to learn from than Bowman?

Tallon, however, I'm not quite so fond of... he needs a lot of work and this article from Scott Burnside over at ESPN really seems to sum up what I think we're all hoping to see:

Bowman, as far as we can tell, has never said anything just to make someone feel good.  Few men have ever seen the game as well as Bowman, and when he tells Tallon et al what he thinks of a player or a situation, he won't be worrying that it's going to hurt someone's feelings.

We also shouldn't forget, Bowman is the one who helped turn Yzerman, one of our boy Toews' hockey heros, into one of the greatest two-way forwards ever.  If you're sick of the comparisons between Toews and Yzerman now, you might want to not read anything about Toews for the next 15 years... 

So enough of the praise for Detroit... that's probably the last time you'll see it here.

You know the Hawks have made it when....

You can get a national, or at least big-time hockey publication to print absolute nonsense about you:

http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/17428-Campbells-Cuts-Expect-Bowman-to-get-more-power-in-Chicago.html

If you'll allow me a www.firejoemorgan.com like rant here (a site every baseball fan should read, by the way) let's dissect this piece by piece.

"It is well-known new Hawks president John McDonough is not a big fan of either Tallon or Savard and that McDonough was the driving force behind the signings of unrestricted free agents Cristobal Huet and Brian Campbell."

Well known to who, exactly? Your friends at the bar, Ken? The mice in your apartment? Who? What is a well known fact is that Tallon had been batting his eyes at Cambpell like an out of work actress at a Hollywood producer for over a year. This included making a run at him during the deadline last season. Was McDonough dictating what prospects to give up? To think this could be the case is laughable. McDonough is simply to bright a guy to think he can interfere with hockey decisions.

"The Atlanta Thrashers had the inside track on Campbell in the first hours of free agency. He was reportedly about to accept Atlanta’s offer when McDonough apparently ordered Tallon to improve the Chicago’s offer to Campbell, who ended up signing with the Blackhawks for $56.8 million over eight years."

Sure, it had nothing to do with Campbell wanting to play in a surging hockey market for a possible contender for the next 8 years. Actually, Campbell was just heartbroken The Gold Club was no longer in existence. There are just as many rumors that Atlanta still offered more money than the Hawks did.

"It was much the same with Huet. The night before free agency opened, the Capitals thought they had a deal done with Huet for $15 million over three seasons. But again, apparently at McDonough’s insistence, the Hawks sweetened their offer, adding another year and $565,000 per season."

If the Caps really thought they had a deal with Huet the night BEFORE free agency, why then would Huet bother to test the open market? And how does Huet sign affect marketing in any way? Though he's a good goalie, this isn't Patrick Roy and Dominik Hasek's lovechild coming to town. (Boy, there's an image.) Even more-than-casual fans couldn't tell you everything about Huet. And most Hawk fans know they already have one overpaid goalie, so why McDonough would order this signing beggars belief.

"After all, why would Bowman leave the Red Wings for the Blackhawks, aside from the chance to work with his son Stan, who is an assistant GM in Chicago and is currently fighting Hodgkin’s lymphoma?"

Just a hunch, but I'm willing to wager that Ken Campbell hates his father. Must not have batted him 4th in Little League, or something.

"With McDonough at the helm, the Blackhawks are being driven as much by marketing forces these days as they are by hockey decisions, so hiring a recognizable and successful figure such as Bowman makes a lot of sense."

If Campbell knew anything about McDonough, he'd know that McDonough considers winning and marketing the same thing, and you need only to look at his one year as president of the Cubs to see so. As that was the year DeRosa, Lilly, and Soriano were brought in and McDonough made clear only winning the World Series was acceptable, and winning it again and again. He said the exact same thing when taking over the Hawks, that Stanley Cups are the best marketer. But that's ok, journalism doesn't require research or even the least bit of common sense these days.

Honestly, no one will be that shocked if Bowman eventually is installed as GM or coach. And the idea that he's overseeing the GM post while his son waits for the throne is something out of Shakespeare. But as said yesterday, both McDonough and Rocky Wirtz wanted actual hockey eyes looking over everything, not making their best guess. We can all feel safe that Tallon's the one making decisions, because if he wasn't, I'm pretty sure Khabby would have been elsewhere before the Huet signing. That would have made more sense.