I’ve been sitting on these thoughts since January and with the season completed, it’s time to get them on a screen. They aren’t so much about the Hawks as they are about this particular internet space.
I spend an incredible amount of time trying to figure out what to do with this website.
Much of that back-and-forth comes from a development four years ago, when we were contacted by Hawks PR and offered media credentials for a game for the first time. The Hawks won that night 3-1 over the Philadelphia Flyers with Erik Gustafsson, Jonathan Toews and Alex DeBrincat providing the goals. It was a different time.
Ever since, the opportunity has been there for us to be part of the Hawks media contingent. It’s not something we can do as often as the full-time beat reporters since we all have other jobs and only two of us are in this area, but Eric and I get to a handful of games and practices each season as schedules allow us. Sometimes, I think we should invest more time into the first-person reporting opportunity we’ve been afforded, and see what’d happen if we asked more questions in the locker rooms and before/after games — maybe we’d end up with more answers than we have now. But there are already a ton of people doing that, so what would make us so different? Other times, I’m convinced we should keep ourselves more at an arms-length and do everything from that perspective because that’s how this site has operated for almost two decades now. I go back and forth between these two thoughts on a weekly basis — if not daily.
The closest thing to a definitive conclusion hit me this winter, all starting with … the Chicago Bears, of course!
It all started with listening to Robert Mays talk about that initial Bears win over the Packers just before Christmas. For those unaware, Mays is a lifelong Bears fan who’s never hid his fandom but has also emerged as one of the most intelligent, engaging members of the national football media landscape — an extremely challenging task, given the size of that media pool. Below is a link to the podcast episode with the reply having clips from the place where he watched that OT thriller:
It was during that podcast, as Mays relived his experience of that indelible moment in a room full of Bears fans collectively losing their minds when he landed on the words I haven’t forgotten:
It feels really fucking good to care that much.
The timing was important, too, because I heard those words the morning after the Hawks embarrassed the Blues on a national stage for a second time this season, a game that had me outright cackling at times. I was fortunate enough to be there but I was in the press box. That distinction is important, because I’m not sure enough people know what that experience is like. Sure, it’s cool that you have far more space than you do in the seats, complete with a workspace for your laptop and plenty of food and drinks just steps way. But that is a professional setting where people are working, so it requires professional conduct.
All of those things you do during a game … the rocking in your seat and screaming at refs and high-fiving everyone within reach when the Hawks score a goal? That doesn’t happen there. Everyone has their job to do, their stories to write — it’s a more individualized experience. If you’re at the game in the crowd, your job is to watch the game, and you’re sharing that job with 20,000 other people. And those collective experiences are kind of the whole point of this sports thing, ya know? Having the press box view is cool and all, but there’s something missing when you’re in that building, there are things happening down on the ice, and you’re just supposed to sit there and absorb them instead of immersing yourself in the emotions that come alongside them. And as I watched the Hawks light up Jordan Binnington that evening and was required to keep my emotions largely in-check, it just felt … incorrect. And listening to what Mays said the morning after that game hit the right space in my head to piece it all together: that the press box isn’t really the place to be. At least, not for me.
I’m saying all of this to set expectations for what this site will be bringing you in the future. We’ve been doing this credentialed media thing for a good while but haven’t set a specific gameplan internally or externally so everyone knows what we’re doing here. The majority of what we do will continue to be from that arms-length perspective because that’s how you’re all taking this in, and that’s who our target audience is: you, our fellow Blackhawks fans. We want to write and talk and post from that shared perspective. But we’re not going to totally punt on the opportunity to ask a question or two, whether it’s an introductory press conference for a new head coach or an end-of-season media session. We’ll likely pop up in the press box during a handful of games each season, hoping we can ask a question or two to satisfy the hockey geek curiosities we develop from watching this team (selfishly, I’m considering that the payoff for the couple of decades I spent covering high school sports in towns you’ve probably never heard of). Perhaps we can get some Hawks players or coaches or staff lined up for podcasts or articles or whatever down the road, too. We do have a chance to bring you all something from the inside of the organ-i-zation and we’d like to, at least, see what we can do with it.
After spending an incalculable amount of time wrestling with these thoughts, it feels like I can confidently tell you what the path is going forward for myself and for this site. Back in 2011, I had standing tickets for Game 6 between the Hawks and Canucks along with my twin brother and two of my closest friends — one from high school and one from college. When Ben Smith scored that OT winner, the four of us lost our minds like everyone else inside the UC that night, spontaneously coming together in this weird jumping/spinning/screaming hug that I have a hard time explaning in a non-visual medium (and now that I think about it, I did damn near the exact same thing with three different people at the end of that aforementioned Bears/Packers game). It’s one of my most vivid and most cherished memories of that entire run.
And you can’t get that from the press box.
The Week That Was
Thursday, April 9: Hurricanes 7, Blackhawks 2
Remember when the Hawks had a meaningless Game 82 against the Blues one year, called up virtually the entire IceHogs roster, and then St. Louis struggled to beat that AHL team? This was like that but the other way around and substantially worse.
Saturday, April 11: Blues 5, Blackhawks 3
This sucked, too.
Monday, April 13: Sabres 5, Blackhawks 1
Said this in a few other places but we should all avoid drawing any comparisons between the Sabres’ rebuild or whatever they’re calling it and the Hawks’ current trajectory unless we’re not expecting a postseason appearance until 2032.
Wednesday, April 15: Blackhawks 5, Sharks 2
It was probably best for the sanity of everyone that the Hawks won this game.
The Long Defeat
So here we are at the end of yet another season with the Blackhawks at 31st in the standings and the draft lottery as the next thing on our agenda after making it through 82 games. I don’t know how much has changed between where we are now and where we were at this time one year prior. The biggest difference from this vantage point is that Spencer Knight seems to be the clear-cut No. 1 goalie for this team going forward. Everything else still seems to have a little caveat attached.
Connor Bedard had a couple of incredible stretches this season that were wildly encouraging but we’ll know he’s the real thing when he can maintain that pace for more significant portions of a season than he did in this one. The same goes for Frank Nazar, who had some briliant moments but will likely need to produce more of them next season to satisfy the expectations for him — and his hefty bump in salary. Wyatt Kaiser and Louis Crevier probably had the biggest leaps among the blue-liners. Sam Rinzel’s probably done with Rockford for good. Artyom Levshunov continues to be a work in progress, although it’s fair to acknowledge some progress was made this season. Kevin Korchinski might’ve looked better than he ever has at the NHL level, albeit in a limited sample of games in the last month. Anton Frondell had an extremely promising sample as well. Guys like Ryan Greene and Oliver Moore and Nick Lardis may ultimately settle into depth roles down the road but certainly looked like they all belong at the NHL level at an absolute minimum.
That individual progress from this season can be pointed to as an overall positive sign — and the Blackhawks players, coach and GM certainly attempted to do so that during Thursday’s media sessions — but it still feels difficult to locate too much confidence in this rebuild until there’s collective progress as well. Ten more points in the standings don’t feel like enough when the team was still No. 31 overall and the goal differential this season (minus-62) was only marginally better than the one from last season (minus-70).
All those players are still young, so maybe that leap’s coming next season. Everyone’s level of confidence in the belief that it’s coming will vary. I know some readers have perceived pessimism from this series all season long, but I promise, folks: I’m still trying. I’m trying real hard.
The Week That Will (Not) Be
Donation Update
One last update to our season-long pledge to the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant & Refugee Rights, the organization with a stated mission of “dedicated to promoting the rights of immigrants and refugees to full and equal participation in the civic, cultural, social, and political life of our diverse society.” Our last check-in was after Game 57, when the Hawks were at 151 goals scored. They ended the season at 210 goals, which meant another 59 were scored over the final 25 games. That’s an average of 2.36 per game, below the season-long rate of about 2.56 per game (210 in 82 games — 30th in the league). So one final donation will head to the ICIRR for the mark of 59 goals, matched to bring the amount to $118.