Personal information about the Artist....

So, where were you at the Hawks celebration?
I gotta tell ya, for some 50 years it’s been a ‘good news/bad news’
relationship between myself and hockey.

I completely blew out my right knee the night the US Olympic hockey team played the “Do you believe in miracles?” game. Such a great moment, tempered by some really lousy news for an active young guy.

During the All-Star game I was in the hospital recovering from knee surgery number three. Sure, that one would do the trick!

Today, (with my friends providing the updates from Hawks mania downtown) I was in Joliet, being told I’d have two surgical procedures done to the ankle on my ‘bad knee’ side, the recovery for which will take me through the entire summer, followed in the fall by a complicated total knee replacement. The rehab for the knee is expected to take more than six months because of the extensive damage. We’re talking about nearly a year blown away, and not just any year-just like today wasn’t just any day.

After a life of the Hawks drama, a life all of us “50+year olds” have in common and can relate to, I don’t get to enjoy the full experience of basking in the glow of victory.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather be in physical misery while the Hawks are Stanley Cup Champs than be in physical misery AND have another year of waiting and hoping.

It just goes to show ya-
-its always something!

But I did tell you they'd win the Cup this year!

GO HAWKS!!!

Soon it will be the Finals. It’ll likely be the Philadelphia Flyers rolling into town to face the Hawks and for some of us it will bring back memories of ecstasy and agony from previous finals. For some fans it will bring out a host of superstitions and comparisons from days and players gone by. Here’s my take.

I was in the Stadium for two final series.

Winning the Cup against Detroit.
I got to see a couple of the games when the Hawks won the Cup in ’61. I was just a little kid, but I’d already met many of the players on that team and my uncle Marty Ozinga’s business had season tix and he enjoyed my devotion to the Hawks, so I was witness to the awe of the Chicago Stadium in its heyday during my ‘formative years’! I was lucky, the Hawks had been losers the season before and none of the adults were begging for my ticket! I can still remember the distinctive aroma of the game-day program and the cloud of cigar smoke that hung just above the dangling lights. That Stanley Cup winning team was a group of over-achievers and a mix of young an old that won the ultimate prize and set me up for a moment of bliss and a lifetime of anguish! Not many predicted the Blackhawks winning, but the playoffs were a different animal in the olden days. Its tough to take when your very first experience doesn’t get equaled for 50 years, especially when you're so closely associated with the 'team'. For many of us, the 'Teams' have come and gone countless times, but the question to US was always the same-"what happened to YOUR Hawks?"

I missed the Leafs Series because my grandma passed away. The Hawks couldn't quite recreate their earlier magic.

Then there was THE Montreal series.
I saw one game on a closed-circuit feed on the big screen at the Beverly Theater, but by now I had to pay my own way and we were a typical working family with no extra cash for such childhood pandering. Even closed circuit theater games were a whopping $7 back then (equal to about $70 today!), and tickets to the Stadium (if I could've even found a ride there) were impossible. Not many kids attended Hawks games back then and the 'extra' season tickets now went to people much more important than me. Still, imagine a moment in time when a responsible dad could safely drop his little boy at the door of a theater five miles from his home with a couple thousand crazy Hawks fans and not have a worry about his safety! We left on a family trip after the first couple of games, and in those days parents didn’t give their kids the option of staying “Home Alone” (I’m the youngest of five kids). I saw the series on Canadien t.v., but I actually recorded the play by play of Lloyd and Harvey and can still literally replay the heartbreak and disbelief of that “one goal” (no pun intended) that Tony O wished he could have back above all others. So Close, yet so far!

The Penguins Finals.
Ho-Lee Sheat! At that point I knew the players well on a personal level and really respected the talent and leadership the Hawks had on the ice and behind the bench. There were several players that I really considered to be friends. We were close enough to have conversations with each other’s moms-even if the conversation was in broken French! I really believed that the 91/92 Hawks team was an unstoppable force, and their sweeping march through the playoffs gave that belief credibility. The feeling of winning was different for me by then. It wasn’t just a childhood infatuation with winning and the Indian Head Jersey, it was feeling like I was involved in the process in some way. It was personal pride in the players. It was my hope for the dreams of a bunch of guys that I’d really learned to like and respect. It was crushing to see Super Mario and his young ability defeat the creaking knees but awesome heart of Dirk Graham-a warrior to the bitter end.

Now, I’m sitting on the edge of time again, just as I was in each of those series, but this time the world doesn’t revolve around me. I’m far more detached and objective this time around, in part because of a lifetime of Hawks disappointments-but its more than that. I’m much older now than the players, so I relate far better to Tazer’s folks than to Jon. The lockout year put me at a distance with the current generation of Hawks. The changing of the front office made the drift deeper. The state of the world helps put sports into a different perspective for me as well.

Now I look at the players as the kids their parents raised. I want to see Steeger do well because he’s just such an honest and unaffected guy. Buff’s such a neat story of survival and success. Niemi is a story of perseverance and confidence. It seems like Seabs and Duncs were just kids a minute ago, playing for a pretty crappy Blackhawks team. You knew they were special if they could just survive-and they have
-minus a few teeth.

Nope, WE won’t win a Cup this year, but these kids will! It won’t matter which hat you wear, how a player laces his skates or if you’ve prayed for the Cup or not. Its not destiny, it’s not a Cubs Curse, not a Muldoon’s Curse, not a Hossa Curse or even the Flyer’s ‘miraculous’ playoff run. They won’t win it because they’re nicer guys or more deserving than the other team or because 'they're overdue'. It will have nothing to do with the Jersey logo. If you know hockey, you know that what I’ve been saying for the past two seasons is a simple fact. Its about accumulated talent by a GM, the proper use and organization of that talent on the ice by a coaching staff, and a will to work together by all of the above. They won’t win the Cup for me, for Chicago, for posterity or for the organization. They’ll win it because they’re better than anybody else in all the ways I’ve described. If you can’t see that, you don’t know hockey.
So be at ease, you Hawks fanatics, both old timers and bandwagon jumpers. Its not even close.

It really is just that simple. The rest of us are just along for the ride on this roller coaster. A ride some of us have been waiting to get on for a lifetime. Now I just have to go back to my 6 year-old mindset, put my hands in the air, and scream.....Go Hawks!

To the memory of Jason Sparenberg, a great Hawks fan for the ages! I wish he could see this happening. Go Hawks, Jason.....
-tib

If you can't be in Vancouver, Mike Mangino's new home theater is the next best place to be. We all watched tonight's game in high-def thanks to Mike and Express Vue....no thanks to NBC for relegating one of the marquie hockey match-ups of the decade to mnbc. Well, at least I didn't have to spend the evening yelling at JR and Edso to please shut up and allow the rest of us to enjoy the game (sorry guys, but you get to be in BC so cry me a river-and JR, when are you gonna drop 'em with Millsy-Vanilly! ).
Now, the comparisons to 1960 or 1980 are a bit of hyperbole-really, there are so many Olympic teams full of NHL stars that the odds of winning are much like the odds any night during the season. Typically, tonight it came down to goaltending. Miller was hot, Martin was not. I was surprized by the sluggishness of the Canadien team, but not by the hustle from the Hawks on the ice. Tazer did a great job pressuring the puck, Seabs was solid, Dunc's was quick moving up the ice, and Kaner not only showed speed-he showed strength! All in all, every bit the entertaining game I'd hoped for, even down to the spectacular open net goal to seal the deal. You probably couldn't ask for a better advertisement and promotion for the NHL in the Unioted States-
--except very few Americans got to see it!
Go Hawks!!!!!!
-tib

First and foremost I’d like to take this chance to thank all of the fans who stopped by at the Convention-it’s always a pleasure to get acquainted with new fans and the faces behind the names on the Message Boards. Also a “well-done” to Brian Howe of the Blackhawks who appears to be the Tony Ommen of the Convention-another wizard behind the curtain who seems to make it all look like magic.

Now, to address the unconventional. Stay with me here.

The best selling prints from my collection were of Kris Versteeg. Granted, Steeger is an exciting player and I do think the artwork is cool, but I think a big draw for fans to Steeger is the same thing I like about him. He’s not afraid to be himself and say what he feels without first running his opinions through a focus group. Love him or hate him, isn’t it refreshing to see someone in the entertainment industry who we can take at face value?

Yes, I said “the entertainment industry”. Hockey is a sport, but the NHL is part of the entertainment industry. I love hockey at all levels and spend a lot of time watching it being played by both little tykes and old geezers; for me it really is about ‘how the game is played’. The National Hockey League is a different matter. The NHL is and always has been a business that competes for your entertainment dollars just like the movies, theater and concerts. It’s a tough economy for non-essentials-and the Blackhawks, as well as the NHL in total-have to find ways to coerce you into their stadiums and they into your livingrooms. Controversial business and marketing decisions have been a part of the NHL since its inception. A lot of folks came by to ask my opinion concerning the loss of Marty Havlat and Dale Tallon, two guys that I also accepted at face value.

If you’ve been reading my blogs the last few years, you know that I’ve been consistent in my opinion that Dale spent big money to get big names to play in what was inarguably the worst hockey environment in the NHL. He had to do it, there were no options at that time. You can argue about the results of individuals (Aucion and Cullimore?) and the ramifications on future signings (Campbell and Huet?), but you can’t argue with success. I’ve always maintained that Khabi is the best positional goaltender I’ve ever seen and Marty Havlat will always be one of those rare athletes who has both skill and, like a guy named “Sweetness” once had, the ability to ‘see’ the game unfold ahead of him. I also happened to like all three of those guys.

I also liked Ruut’s, I also remember lecturing Yawney as a kid and hated to see him leave a lifetime later as a coach. Billy Ray was a classy guy, and Bobby Hull could never leave Chicago-but he did. Remember when Pat Foley was let go? The list of players and personnel I miss is a long one, but it’s the nature of the business. The only 2 ways I know to avoid disappointment is to 1) either quit watching pro hockey or 2) remove the illusion that this is more than a business and that we are consumers and the players are commodities. So many of us have suffered through so many bad years that we feel we’re owed loyalty because we’ve remained loyal, but those are both OUR problems. There’s no ‘Mr. Blackhawk’ to be loyal to or expect it from. That’s not an insult, its reality! There’s only the game; the guys on the ice today. So, I don’t hate Cheli or Bobby for leaving. I’m not angry about the departure of the guys I liked, but if the decisions were made for the wrong reasons and it screws up the chances of the team on the ice-YOU will remind the decision makers that YOU are the consumer, YOU are the paying audience. I’ve already written my piece concerning chemistry and the guys on the ice last season. The kids played hard for themselves, for their teammates and for the staff-a trait missing from journeymen like Aucoin and Cullimore. In my opinion last season's team would have improved on its own, without new acquisitions-simply from experience and physical maturation. I'll admit that I do enjoy some of the embellishments of the 'new' Blackhawks and the Classic was a terrific event, but in my opinion the building was selling out because of the product on the ice and the thrill of being in the same gravity as a winner, just as it was in the old Stadium once upon a time. If that formula has been altered without sound reasoning, the natural flow of business will correct the mistakes just as quickly as all of the questions, complaints and boo’s will. If the reasons were legitimate, we’ll know that in short order as well and credit will be due. Either way, expectations are as high as the stack of dollars that have been spent, and the countdown is ON!
GO HAWKS!
-tib