The Blackhawks’ season appeared to be peaking at the perfect moment. With owner-superstar Mario Lemieux back on the ice after a three-and-a-half-year layoff, the Pittsburgh Penguins were coming to town, bringing the Hawks their first capacity crowd at the United Center since a bunch of Detroit Red Wings fans filled the place early in the season. Owner Bill Wirtz, in a move of bold generosity for him–if an obvious gesture for anyone else–allowed the sold-out game two Sundays ago to be televised on the team’s cable outlet, Fox Sports Net Chicago. There was a buzz about the team and about the stadium unlike anything anyone had felt for years–probably not since the Hawks had been swept at the hands of the very same Lemieux and the Pens in the 1992 Stanley Cup finals.
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I suppose I could have found a way to get tickets to the Hawks’ game against the Penguins, but what would have been the fun in that? I stayed home for the novelty of watching a Hawks home game on TV, explaining to my daughters the importance of “Super Mario” and of such Chicago hockey rituals as shouting through the national anthem. Of all the pregame TV productions designed to give the home team an air of mystery and greatness–a marketing tool adopted by the Bulls and White Sox–the Hawks have the most effective. The ambient background music has a tribal tone to it, and the visuals pour over the distinctive Chief Black Hawk logo and the various tools of the hockey trade–skates, sticks, pads–in a way that reminds one of the almost mystical power a fan endows them with in childhood. These give way to a highlight reel of team greats skating by–Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita and Tony Esposito and Denis Savard and even Keith Magnuson, who’s getting the better of someone in a fight for what was probably the only time in his career. It all looked even better at home than it usually looks on the scoreboard TV.
History was in the air with Lemieux on the ice. Driven to retire after the 1997 playoffs by nagging injuries and the clutching style of play then rampant in the National Hockey League, he decided this season to end his R and R and return to a league now less given to cheap shots and fighting. He was cheered as he opened the game on the ice, and that cheering seemed to rally the Hawks, who were determined to make this full-house crowd their own. The Hawks flew all over the ice but couldn’t buy a break. Sullivan set up Daze for an open shot on a two-on-one, but Daze pushed the puck right into the pads of Pittsburgh goalie Garth Snow. Nylander later fed Daze right in front of the net, and Daze beat Snow this time, but the shot glanced off the post. (In the Hawks’ alternate universe, that shot goes in and everything’s different.) Lemieux, who had returned to score 10 goals and earn 12 assists in his first 11 games, his usual two-points-a-game pace, looked lovely, scooting across the blue line into the attack zone, pulling up, drawing the defense, controlling the puck, and then slipping a nice pass to Jaromir Jagr, who muffed it. That was the story for both teams in the first period–missed opportunities.
“That’s the game,” said one beat writer familiar with the Hawks’ offense, which tends to come in trickles even when the players are in the best of health. The question is, was it the season? Thibault gave up another goal in the first minute of the second period and still another–the fourth in only 10 shots–midway through the period. That prompted Suhonen to lift him for Michel Larocque, who was making his NHL debut. The Hawks fought on defense to make his first game respectable, but the offense–in marked contrast with the way it fought to the finish against Pittsburgh–went belly-up. The Hawks’ Steve Dubinsky shot through a Ryan VandenBussche screen, and though Philly goaltender Brian Boucher made the initial stop, VandenBussche knocked in the rebound–but that was the Hawks’ only goal of the night. Larocque gave up a power-play goal in the last frame to make the final 5-1. Amonte was booed when he got off a lame shot on an open two-on-two in the final minutes, and so were the rest of the Hawks as the clock ticked down.
