By Jim Coffman
Consider Friday and Saturday evenings’ games exhibits 1A and 1B in the case for putting Blackhawks home contests on TV. It doesn’t seem possible this case will ever really need to be made again but hardened Hawks fans won’t be completely convinced for a while yet that the recent run of enlightened leadership at 1901 West Madison won’t suddenly be exposed as a mirage. After all, the biggest reason the Hawks needed to televise their contests at the United Center wasn’t exactly complicated. They needed to improve the odds the fans at home would see at least as many victories as setbacks, what with winning being about the best marketing a team can do and all.
Sure enough, the Blackhawks played glorious hockey right from the jump at the UC Friday against coach Wayne Gretzky’s Phoenix Coyotes. They raced out to five splendid scores (they were all slick passing plays leading to great shots – not a lucky-bounce goal among them) in the first 10 minutes. And they eventually cruised to a deliciously decisive 6-1 win.
In the old days (actually . . . in the October days) before the decision announced last month to finally start regularly broadcasting hockey on Comcast live from the West Side, potential fans might have heard or read about Friday’s impressive performance and then tuned in for the weekend’s only televised action the next evening. And then of course they would have seen the homestanding St. Louis Blues give the Hawks a thumpin’ that wasn’t as close as the 3-1 final. Fortunately, even after the second game, the events of the night before remained fresh.
And now . . . Snippets!
* Play-by-play man Dan Kelly and analyst Eddie Olczyk did a serviceable job on the mike for both games. I will say that a Kelly pre-game comment Friday about borrowing some of the mousse Olczyk uses in his hair had me pining for the old days. I’m reasonably confident longtime Hawk chronicler Lloyd Petit never referenced hair care in any way, shape or form during his storied career.
* Martin Havlat, the leading returning scorer who celebrated his return from a shoulder injury to the Hawks lineup earlier last week against Tampa Bay (a 5-1 win) with goals near the start of both the first and second periods, kicks things off again. His smooth move around a defender at the blue line enables him to slip the puck to Tuomo Ruutu, who snaps it into the net under the arm of Coyote goalie Ilya Bryzgalov.
* A little while after a Coyote shot rings off the post (there’s a little of that hockey luck) The Taser (rookie forward Jonathan Toews) scores his 10th goal of the season. And then young Dustin Byfuglien goes to work. He has the Hawks’ heaviest slap shot and he uses it to score three goals on three straight shots in less than six minutes. He might not have three rapid-fire scoring chances, and cash in all three with perfectly placed shots, like that again in his career. And it is looking like the 6-3, 246-pound defenseman may be settling in for a long run on the Blackhawk blue line. Byfuglien’s second goal is set up by Toews and fellow rookie (and Blackhawk leading point producer with seven goals and 20 assists) Patrick Kane; this team’s potential seems just about limitless.
* And oh by the way, it isn’t enough for the announcers to tell us that somehow the correct pronunciation of Byfuglien’s name is Buff-lin. We need a little more information about what is potentially the biggest spelling-pronunciation differential in Illinois and its neighboring states since Brett Favre came along.
* After Byfuglien’s third goal a brief shot of the ice shows that at least a half-dozen fans have heaved their hats onto the ice in honor of the three-goal performance. Shortly thereafter, Olczyk opines “No lead is safe in this league.” Ed, this lead is safe. Phoenix’s leading scorer is former Hawk Radim Vrbata (9 goals) and he isn’t exactly tearing it up out there.
* Another rookie, Colin Fraser (playing in only his second game in the NHL), livens up the last few minutes of the first period by dropping his gloves with Phoenix tough guy Daniel Carcillo. Fraser gets in a few shots early but the tide turns and Carcillo, who already has more than 100 penalty minutes, gives the rookie “a rough ride” before the combatants are separated. Side-ice reporter Josh Mora reveals he had a pre-game conversation with Blackhawk goon Dave Koci (who recently returned to the lineup after being sidelined for two weeks with a broken nose) in which he asked if Koci and Carcillo “might have a go.” Koci responded “Nah, he’s more of a middleweight.” Good to see the guys are so sporting.
* The primary highlight of the rest of the game, other that Ruutu’s second goal, is an interview with new Hawks president John McDonough. My favorite part is when McDonough talks about the future and particularly about the Blackhawks’ “po-tential.” He stresses the first syllable and then some, later repeats it with even more emphasis and if you didn’t know better, you’d swear he’d been working for this hockey organ-I-zation all his life.
McDonough later notes that one of the things about the Blackhawks that “jolted him” as he learned more about the team and the sport after decades spent working for the Cubs was the fact that the team has four official dentists.
* In the aftermath of Friday’s game, it is looking more and more like former superstar Denis Savard has a reasonable shot to be the rare former superstar player who successfully transitions into coaching. Not so Gretzky, who it must be noted was a slightly larger star than Savvy, and everyone else who ever played the game. It seemed crystal clear a timeout should have been called (OK, it was mostly clear because Olczyk, a former coach himself, repeated the point pretty much nonstop for the next few minutes) after the Hawks’ third goal back in the first period – and if not after the third then certainly after the fourth Hawks’ tally. In a related matter, if a coach is going to change the goalie, he probably needs to do so before the game is totally out of reach. The Coyotes have struggled throughout Gretzky’s tenure and while you can make the argument that the squad is undermanned, Gretzky simply hasn’t distinguished himself as a line-changer.
* In the end, let’s be clear about one thing: the main thing the Blackhawks have going for them this year is that they have been bad enough long enough to finally pile up enough top-10 draft picks to turn things around. But let’s also note that the 16,000-plus who attended Friday’s game despite the opportunity to watch it at home certainly weren’t complaining.
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Jim Coffman is covering this season’s historic home Hawks telecasts for the Beachwood.
Posted on December 3, 2007