So after much wailing over suffering the indignity of not being able to watch the Blackhawks/Penguins exhibition game on TV live last night, it turns out we’re probably all happier today for having not seen it. By all accounts, it was an absolute disaster at the new Igloo, with the iron mustache of Joel Quenneville coming down hard on his obvious piecemeal squad after the fact, stating, “It wasn’t a very good game for us,I didn’t like our game at all. All night long, our passing was off, our puck support wasn’t there and our puck possession game wasn’t what we traditionally see. It was tough.” So there, WGN and CSN did a public service by Blackhawk Nation by not televising it, which would have resulted in probable mass hysteria. For those of you who did stay up to watch the delay on the NHL network, unfortunately, I don’t know where you can get a refund for those two and a half hours of your life. Personally, I missed the delayed edition as well, so I can’t offer you much.
For those of you who are into gawking at car crashes on the Kennedy, pop on over to The Third Man In, where Chris Block has an excellent and thorough breakdown of last nights inaction. Gleaning what I can from that, though Kyle Beach did finally dent the twine in one of these rehearsals, it appeared that everyone else didn’t give much of a shit, and their play on the ice reflected that. Mercifully, these games don’t count, and by no way should be indicative of the season to come.
- Chris Kuc reports that Marty Turco will play the whole game against St. Louis tomorrow, but no one will see it, as it will not be televised live either. Send your angry emails to Jay Blunk immediately.
- Tonight is the team’s ring ceremony, and it will be held privately. Of all of the recent ex-Hawks, only Kris Versteeg will be in attendance, perhaps to air his grievances at Stan Bowman over the misspelling of his name on the cup.