Memories, Superstitions and Comparisons-why WE won't win the Cup, but the Hawks will.

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