I remember growing up in a Chicago that didn’t really care about the Blackhawks. That’s what always made this group of players particularly special to me, more than the trips to the playoffs, more than the homegrown superstars, more than the Stanley Cups, even. The Blackhawks didn’t matter for so long, and then suddenly, they did.
This obviously isn’t true for everyone — the diehards have always been there, and one has to imagine hoisting that first Cup back in 2010 was especially meaningful for them. But for someone like me, who was born in 1991 — effectively whiffing on memories of the 1992 run — that was the culmination to a brief, powerful courtship.
The Blackhawks were a young team with a new winning culture, I was a young kid about to go to college, and that was that. I was hooked.
Now I’m taking over here at Second City Hockey as managing editor, and I seriously can’t express how excited I am to do this with you all. You’re probably not familiar with me unless you read about basketball or baseball, the sports I’ve written about while attending school the past few years, but the transition to talking hockey comes rather naturally when you’ve been having these arguments with buddies on the couch for years.
I’m sure you’ll get to know more about me in time, but very briefly, I grew up in a suburb north of Chicago until attending American University in the nation’s capital. I graduated from there in May, and now write about the NBA and copy edit for SBNation.com in addition to doing some freelance work. SCH will be a primary focus of mine going forward, though, so don’t worry about this site getting distracted with talk of D-Rose or whatever. This is Hawks time all the time.
I know that many of you enjoyed the great coverage provided by Greg Boysen, and his work here will surely be missed. I’m confident that we’ll be able to continue maintaining the impressive standard that he set, and hopefully we’ll be able to push the bar even higher. After all, the Blackhawks are a pretty spectacular organization, and I think we can all agree they deserve a great place for all of us to enjoy the show.
So I’m sure you’ll see a lot more information here soon regarding the transition, but with so much support and a talented group I’m excited for the future of SCH. I’m also the new point of contact for anything regarding the site, so if you have any questions, comments or stuff like that, I can be reached by email via satcheleprice AT gmail.com. I’m also on Twitter at @SatchelPrice, and be sure to follow the blog on Twitter and Facebook, too, if you don’t already.
And finally, thanks to everyone involved here, from the returning and new writers (we’ll have more on this soon enough) to everyone at SBN, including Travis Hughes, Tyler Bleszinski, Matt Watson, Kurt Mensching, Mike Prada, Ricky O’Donnell and some other people I’ve surely forgotten. And, of course, thanks to you guys (THE READERS!!!!), since this would kinda be sad if I was just writing Patrick Kane fan fiction to myself.
Oh, yeah, and go Hawks. This should be fun.
(Photo HT: USA Today)