Five reasons to root for the Canucks

As a lifelong Blackhawks fan, the team's having been knocked out in the first round of the playoffs by the Vancouver Canucks was not exactly what I hoped for. Yet as a hockey fan, with the exception of the outcome, the series exceeded my wildest expectations. It had everything one could hope for, magnificent skill and speed, big hits, raw emotion, good guys and bad guys (depending on which side you were on), failure and redemption, and most of all, high drama. It ended in perhaps the most compelling and exciting scenario in all of sports, sudden death overtime in game seven of a hockey playoff series, the entire season on the line, everything hinging on one goal, the next one.

In the end, certainly everyone must agree that the better team won. The Canucks ended the season with the best record in the NHL. The Hawks finishing with a respectable record, nonetheless stumbled into the playoffs. Yet in the first round of the playoffs, the Blackhawks played with grit, determination and heart, and came within an eyelash of stealing the series. I think it will go down in history as one of the greatest playoff series of all time, it was the kind of stuff upon which legends are made.

As with all good rivalries, there is much to dislike about the opponent. After game seven, Vancouver's star forward Daniel Sedin claimed that the Hawks probably didn't "deserve" to make it as far as the seventh game of the series. An interesting comment given the fact that over the course of the series, the Hawks outscored the Canucks 21 to 16. Sedin's remarks may have been born out of personal frustration as together with his linemate and identical twin Henrick, the Sedins finished the series with a pathetic combined minus 13 rating.*

By contrast, the stars of the series for Vancouver, Alexandre Burrows who scored both goals for his team in the final game, Ryan Kesler, who set up Burrows' first goal and held Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews in check throughout most of the series, and their much maligned goaltender, Roberto Luongo, who made the most important save of the series by stopping Patrick Sharp's point blank shot in overtime of game seven, all were generous in their post series comments about their worthy opponents.

Some sports fans feel compelled to root for the team that beats their team so they can at least say: "we were beaten by the champs". For me personal bias usually gets in the way, but not this year. I'll be rooting for the Canucks to win the Stanley Cup. Here are five reasons why:


1. The better team won. The NHL is often criticized for being the easiest league in professional sports to make it into the post-season. Back in hockey's "golden era", when there were only six teams, four of them made it into the playoffs. An entire season was devoted to eliminating two teams. Today, a slightly smaller percentage of teams get into the post-season, and in the Western Conference, the team with the worst record to make the playoffs, the Blackhawks, finished the regular season with a respectable 44 wins, 29 losses and 9 ties. The Canucks on the other hand had the best record in the entire league, and for credibility's sake, it would be nice if the team with the best record could win it all. It seldom happens.
2. Oh Canada. Ice hockey is Canada's game. The NHL is composed primarily of Canadian players, yet only 6 of the 30 teams in the league are based in Canadian cities. The Montreal Canadiens were the last team from north of the border to win the Cup and that was way back in 1993. The Canuck's next opponent are the Predators from of all places, Nashville. Give me a break. Montreal by the way was eliminated last night, and all the other Canadian teams have been on the golf course for the last two weeks. I think it's about time that Canada took back the Cup.
3. Roberto Luongo. Hockey goalies are special people. As an old radio commercial for the Blackhawks put it: "The puck is flying at you at over 100 miles per hour. Not only do you have to see it, you have to stop it." As a goaltender, your team, your city, and in Luongo's case your entire country's hopes all rest upon your super-human reflexes. And Roberto Luongo is one of the best in the business. But he has one achilles heel, he succumbs to pressure in big games, especially it seems against the Blackhawks. In other words, despite all his hard work and God given talents, he's human like the rest of us. Despite being shaky in the series, even terrible at times, in the end, under more pressure than anyone of us could ever possibly imagine, he came through and made that great save against Sharp. Am I a fan of his? I am now.
4. The Pathos Factor. What do an animal in distress, a drunk person walking face first into a building, and the 2003 Chicago Cubs have in common? They are all pathetic images that no decent person should be forced to witness. The good people of Vancouver have been chomping at the bit for three years now to defeat the Blackhawks. This year the Canucks won the first three games of the series and looked like a shoe-in for crushing their long time adversary. That is until their hopes all but crashed and burned when the Hawks came storming back in the series and forced the Canucks to the brink Tuesday night. Had the Canucks lost, their collapse would have been of dare I say, of biblical proportions.
   
5. Let the Rivalry Begin. It takes two to make any good rivalry. Up until this week, the Canuck/Blackhawk rivalry was one sided, we were their rivals, they were our lap dogs. Not any more. If the Canucks were hungrier than the Hawks this season, next year will be another story. As the Blackhawks found out, it's tough to be champion, every team brings it A game against you. Even the best teams have only so many A games a season. If the Canucks win the Cup, they'll find that out next year.
I can't wait.


*The difference between the number of goals scored for and against a player's team while that player is on the ice.

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Can he do it again?

I'm reviving a ritual that I began two years ago, trying to coax a playoff win out of the Chicago Blackhawks. Last year of course they won the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1961. They were the odds on favorites to win that year and didn't need my help. The year before they were big underdogs and outperformed everybody's expectations. During a few pivotal games when they were trailing I wrote in this blog and as I wrote, the Blackhawks scored, took the lead, and won those games, with the exception of the last one where they lost to the vastly superior Detroit Red Wings.

This year the Hawks backed into the playoffs by virtue of the lowly Minnesota Wild beating the Dallas Stars in the last game of the season. In round one of the playoffs, against their arch-rivals the Vancouver Canucks, the Canucks won the first three games. It looked like it was all over, everyone seemed to have given up with the exception of the team. The Hawks beat the Canucks solidly in games four and five, won game six in a squeaker and forced the winner take all game seven.

Now as I write this, there are less then five minutes to play in game seven, the Hawks are down by one, and a penalty has just been called against Chicago. It looks bleak.

Wait a minute...

BLACKHAWKS SCORE!!!
BLACKHAWKS SCORE!!!
BLACKHAWKS SCORE!!!

Jonathan Toews scores a shorthanded goal. Game tied 1-1.

Overtime. Unbelievable. Let's see how this one turns out.

-

Well at 5:22 in overtime, Alex Burrows of the Canucks scored to win the game and the series. The Blackhawks' season has ended.

But they played out of their minds and went way farther than they probably had any right.

Congratulations Vancouver.

A season ending loss has never been so satisfying.
I couldn't be prouder of my team.

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The Beautiful Game

One of the highlights so far of this year's World Cup was the match between the U.S.A. and Algeria. Very late into the game it was still a nil-nil standoff and the outlook for the Americans looked very bleak indeed as a draw would mean the end of the tournament for the Yanks.

I followed the match on an internet blog. In between the blogger's accounts of the action, readers were invited to supply their own comments. One comment read: "Five minutes until I stop caring about soccer for another four years."

Then, in the 92nd minute of the game, the American star Brandon Donovan scored a thrilling goal, leading his team to a brilliant victory. I added the comment: "Well I guess that guy will be caring for at least another 90 minutes."

Every four years, the whole world tunes in to what is certainly the most significant sporting event on the planet. During this time we in the U.S. have our own quadrennial ritual of going out of our way to comment on how we can't understand what the whole fuss is about.

Of course Americans have avid supporters of the game we call soccer. They say that the day is right around the corner when soccer will be as popular in the States as football, baseball and basketball.

I've heard this sentiment my entire life.

I've lived through several professional Chicago professional soccer clubs, been to see all of them let's see, there were the Spurs and the Mustangs back in the sixties. They both folded after a year or two. Then there was the Chicago Sting with their star, the inimitable Karl-Heintz Graniza whose engaging personality made him the public voice of the team. On the TV news with his cartoon-like German accent, he'd begin his reports after being introduced by the sportscaster Johnnie Morris with a jovial "Senk yoo Chonnie."

"Zee Schtink" as Graniza called the team, actually lasted quite a while both as an indoor (a hybrid game closer to hockey than true soccer) and outdoor team. The Sting even won a few championships which drew about 100 people to each of their downtown rallies. Eventually they too went the way of their predecessors. Now we have the Chicago Fire that seems to have built up a small but loyal following. They made a good business decision a couple of years ago to build a their own stadium in the burbs where they come much closer to filling its 20,000 seats than they could the 50,000 plus as Soldier Field.

As a lover of the game I can give soccer supporters the exact date when their game will be at the same level of popularity here as the top three American sports. That day will be The Twelfth of Never.

There are loads of reasons for this, here are seven:

• We already have enough sports. Football, baseball, basketball, hockey, golf, tennis, automobile racing, boxing, professional wrestling, horse racing, beach volleyball and a host of others all command more attention in the U.S. than soccer. On the bright side, it's still more popular than cricket and hurling.
• There's too little scoring. This is the mantra of soccer detractors of all stripes. It is especially true at the highest levels of the game where there is relative parity between teams. Defensive schemes have become so sophisticated and the players are so good, that coaches have discovered that the way to win at this most rarefied of levels is to put most of a team's eggs in the defensive basket. Even Brazil long known for its offensive flair and style has become defense oriented.
• Soccer is too foreign. Americans are notoriously xenophobic. Soccer is something you stumble upon while channel-surfing. It is broadcast mostly in Spanish with a guy shouting "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!!!!!" all too infrequently.
• Soccer is TV unfriendly. Soccer actually translates well to the little screen unlike baseball or hockey. But baseball with its natural breaks between innings, pitching changes and so forth, is the perfect game for American TV. A soccer match consists of two uninterrupted halves 45 minutes apiece with only very brief stoppages of the clock for injuries or substitutions. At halftime, viewers get up for a drink and a pee, then return right before the second half kickoff. There's simply no good time to show commercials, and the networks are loathe to televise it.
• There's too much flopping. With the exception of cricket where players are expected to correct umpires who mistakenly rule in their favor, a certain amount of gamesmanship exists in all professional sports. Most sports are filled with players who have mastered tricks that fool the officials. And no sport in the world is filled with such masters of deception, who perform their skulduggery with such aplomb and drama as soccer. It is not at all uncommon to see a player after an alleged foul fall to the ground, writhing in agony, to be carried off the field on a stretcher one minute, then perform tremendous displays of athleticism the next. This kind of shameless flopping, effective as may be, is simply unacceptable to American sports fans who value stoic machismo, players who can play through any adversity without as much as a grimace. There is no crying in baseball after all.
• Soccer is not stats driven. American sports fans are obsessed with statistics. Baseball and football players are constantly evaluated statistically on attributes such as speed, power, and the ability to throw a pass, or to hit and catch a ball. Two of the most significant attributes that soccer players are judged by are style and creativity, clearly things not easily measured in numbers. A baseball game can be de-constructed pitch by pitch. Each pitch in itself can supply dozens of different statistics. There are baseball fans who are content without ever actually seeing a game, they simply pour over the stats in the morning paper. The same can be said for football. Soccer is different. A soccer match cannot be dissected play by play. The flow of a game is quite akin to a musical performance whose whole is not the equal to the sum of its parts. You can describe a game, but can never reconstruct it. A soccer match simply has to be seen to be fully understood and appreciated. Here lies the notion of "the beautiful game", an endearment for the sport found in all the parts of the world where the game is known simply as football.
• Soccer in the United States is viewed as an elitist sport. By contrast, in England soccer is viewed this way: "Rugby is a brutish game played by gentlemen while football (soccer) is a gentleman's game played by brutes." In the rest of the world, soccer is the game of the masses. Here in the States, with the exception of immigrant communities, soccer is the domain of the middle and upper middle classes who sign their children up for organized leagues where it is seen as a starter sport. Kids who make it up to more advanced leagues are encouraged to do so as a means for an athletic scholarship. In the rest of the world, pickup soccer is played everywhere. Unlike other sports, the game requires no special equipment and can be improvised at a moment's notice, even a bundle of rags can be substituted for a ball if necessary.The game is played informally in parks, in the streets, alleys, and out in the fields, by children of all ages, most of them with the dream of one day becoming the next Zidane, Kaká, or Lionel Messi.
  
A sport is an acquired taste. Broken down to its components, any competitive game when you come to think of it is pretty ridiculous, whether it be hitting a little ball with a club trying to get it into a hole 300 yards away, two teams bouncing a ball up and down a floor, ultimately attempting to throw it through a hoop, or even this.

My all time favorite slam/description of soccer is: "What sets human beings apart from the other animals is that after millions of years of evolution we have developed hands that, with the help of the opposable thumb, have given us dexterity that has enabled us to build buildings, write books, create great works of art, in short, all the things necessary in order for civilization to exist. Soccer is a game where you can't use your hands."

In short, Americans simply have no passion for soccer. Most of us did not grow up with it, have a home team to root for, play it just for fun, or have a father, mother or mentor to teach the love of the game. Sports as much as anything are integral parts of a nation's culture. That's why no American should feel bad that we lost to Ghana in the World Cup. While Ghana's population is less than one tenth of the United States, and its GDP a is tiny fraction of ours, its passion for soccer is astronomically greater.

Every four years during the World Cup I think of my father who absolutely adored soccer. He taught me the game. He taught me that there were few things in life more beautiful than a perfect crossing pass arching through the air and landing precisely at the foot of a teammate who stops the ball without a bounce. Or a player artfully dribbling the ball past a defender. Or as we saw in person, the great Pelé not scoring a goal himself, but setting one up in miraculous fashion.


My dad played soccer with with me in our back yard, and took me to games for just about as long as he was able to get around on two feet. We bonded as a father and son over soccer probably more than anything else, with the possible exception of hockey.

Football, soccer, whatever you want to call it, is truly the one international language. If you need proof, you need to go no further than one of Chicago's parks on any given Sunday when people of all cultures gather together for pickup games. Here you will see folks that have little or nothing else in common, be it religion, politics, values, life-style, or language. They may even have an insatiable hatred for each other's culture and homeland. But once they're together on the same pitch, everybody is just another footballer.

That's why soccer to me will always be The Beautiful Game.

Go Ghana!

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Provenance of a sports fan

As the Blackhawks are about to enter the Stanley Cup Finals, we come upon the rare prospect of a Chicago sports team entering a championship series. With that comes the uproar over who is a real fan and who is a Johnny-come-lately, a gate crasher, a poseur, or to put it in hockey terms, someone who thinks that icing is just something you put on a cake. This is akin to church at Christmas and Easter time when the regulars grumble over the gall of people who only show up during the holidays, taking up precious seating and parking spots.


I suppose there is something to all this. The die hard, be it a sports fan or church goer who pays his dues day after day, year after year suffering through losing seasons, or sermons, being inconvenienced by people who only turn out to reap the spoils. Or to use another hockey term, the cherry pickers.


Sadly I have to admit to being mostly a fair weather sports fan myself. My philosophy is that life is too short to put all one's emotional energy into a lousy team, especially one whose members are multi-millionaires whose loyalties lie with the highest bidder. The Sunday in fall when it becomes clear that the Chicago Bears have no chance always brings great relief to me as I no longer feel obligated to waste a perfectly good day off in front of the tube watching over-paid grown men play a kid's game.


The same is true for baseball, hockey and basketball, all sports for which I have a great passion, but not enough to live and die for a particular team as some fans.


Of course all that is out the window when one of my teams shows promise. I lose all perspective about the business of sport and concentrate on the drama, the beauty and the pure joy that sports brings to my life. Call it love of the game if you will. Few things are as exciting or as beautiful to watch as great athletes doing what they do best, whether it be a perfectly turned double play, an ally-oop pass, a sixty yard bomb, or a goalie stopping a 100 mph one timer from the slot.


So am I worthy to be aboard the Blackhawks' bandwagon now even though until last year, I admittedly had not given them much thought for well over a decade?


I asked myself that same question back in 1986 when the Bears won the Super Bowl, in the nineties when the Bulls won all their championships, and most recently in 2005 when the White Sox won the World Series. Those years I followed my teams closely, my life practically revolved around them. I shared in their ups, and died a little with the downs. Today in leaner times I still keep up with them but mostly only to listen for the score following a game.


I can't recall the exact time when I became a Bears fan, I remember listening to them in on the car radio in the late sixties and early seventies when broadcasting "legend" Jack Brickhouse and former player turned gossip columnist Irv Kupcinet were the announcers. Their scintillating commentary make today's counterparts sound downright Shakespearean. Every year the great Gale Sayers would have a few 100 yard games before getting hurt. Quarterback Bobby Douglas could throw the ball 90 yards but couldn't hit the side of a barn from 20. The immortal Abe Gibron who liked to give interviews while sitting on his throne behind closed doors (if you catch my drift) was one of the more memorable head coaches. I can't say I ever seriously followed the Bears until late in the Walter Payton era in the early eighties when they were a truly great team for one year at least. I became a Bulls fan in the early seventies when they made several serious attempts at the NBA championship. And as I mentioned in this space earlier, I became a White Sox fan in high school simply because they were way cooler than the Cubs.


In all three cases I came to these teams entirely on my own, I didn't inherit them.


This is definitely not the case with the Blackhawks. Thinking about it the other day, my very earliest memory is being in my first home, a small apartment on Humboldt Boulevard, watching the Hawks (back then they were the Black Hawks) on our black and white Zenith TV. For years that was our Saturday winter evening ritual as the Hawks played their five NHL "original six" rivals. Any worthy Blackhawk fan will have no trouble dating me as I mention the names Kenny Wharram, Pierre Pilotte, Ken Hodge, Phil Espositio and Glenn Hall, all Black Hawks at the time. Of course the real stars of that team back then and for many years to come were Bobby Hull and my first and perhaps greatest sports idol of all time, Stan Mikita.

Ice hockey was THE game in our house as my Czechoslovak father could not tolerate baseball or American football. To him those sports consisted of standing around, scratching and spitting, very briefly interrupted by moments of fleeting action.

My father loved hockey more than any other sport, especially the kind of game which was rare at that time in the NHL. He loved fast skating, crisp passing and skilled stick work, the kind of game he grew up with back home. Here hockey was much more physical, lots more body checking, dump and chase offense, and of course the fighting which he couldn't stand. Nonetheless my dad rooted for the team of his adopted home town and passed on a love of that team to his son. He was not in any way a home team booster, he called it as he saw it and was not at all interested in making excuses for them. None of this nonsense about blaming a loss on a blown call or bad bounce. If the other team was better, he'd say it point blank, even if the Hawks won the game. To him style and sportsmanship were more important than the score.

We'd go to maybe one or two games a year, almost always standing room in the much missed Chicago Stadium. It was there that we witnessed Bobby Hull's 499th and 500th goals, among other great moments. In those years, the Hawks were the toughest ticket in town. Unlike other sports franchises in Chicago in those very lean years, the Black Hawks consistently fielded a good team. They always made it into the playoffs, and made it all the way to the Finals in 1971, 1973 and 1992. Unfortunately they were never quite good enough to win it all. Then in the mid-nineties, their tightfisted owner "Dollar" Bill Wirtz decided to cash in and sell off all their stars. Wirtz' son Rocky took over the team upon the old man's death a couple of years ago and brought a new spirit and commitment to the team ending 15 years of misery for their loyal fans.

As I look at the current Chicago Blackhawks, my father certainly would have loved this team. They are the fastest skaters and the best puck handlers in the NHL, hands down. And by and large they are an admirable group of guys who are great team players.

My dad had very particular reasons for liking or disliking particular players. He'd certainly admire up front guys like Patrick Sharp and Duncan Keith. He'd no doubt be a big fan of both the skills and personality of the tacitern captain Jonathan Toews. He'd have reserved Slavic pride in the Slovaks Marian Hossa and Tomas Kopecky but certainly would not fail to lament that the Czech Martin Havlat, traded away a year ago, was better in his opinion. While he'd be an admirer of the skills of Patrick Kane, he would bemoan his habit of wearing his mouth guard on the outside as well as some of his off ice behavior. Conversely he'd no doubt like the gentle giant Dustin Byfuglien as a person, but not like his style of camping out in front of the net screening the opposition's goaltender and waiting to be fed the puck.

I can just hear our argument:
"He reminds me of Phil Esposito who I never liked." he'd say.
"But 'Big Buff's' intimidation in front of the net was the key to the Hawk's success in the playoffs up to this point, besides he's just doing what's asked of him" I'd say.
"It is selfish to just wait in front of the net for someone to pass the puck to you" retorts Dad.
"So what if it helps the team?" I'd remark.
At which point he would stop speaking to me for about a week.

The Blackhawks' opponent in these Stanley Cup finals will be the Philadelphia Flyers. Back in the seventies their dirty play earned them the nickname the "Broad Street Bullies". This version of the Bullies was only a .500 team in the regular season but have played impressively in the playoffs, most notably coming back from being down three games to none against Boston, and a 3-0 score in gave seven to win the series. They have just beaten the Montreal Canadiens who had a magical playoff run of their own upsetting both the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins and the team with the best record in the NHL this year, the Washington Capitals.

Still the Blackhawks will be huge favorites to win the Cup, which makes this lifelong Chicago fan more than a little nervous. Last season no one expected anything of them and they surprised everyone by making it to the Conference Championships. This year their motto has been "One Goal", clearly stating that anything short of bringing the Cup to Chicago for the first time since 1961 would be a tremendous disappointment.

But win or lose it has been a great ride and the team's success has given this city a reason to celebrate after a few dismal years of a terrible economy, an increase in violent crime and an overall feeling of discontent.

I'll be watching intently as this potential championship would mean more to me than the Bears', the Bulls' and the White Sox' championships combined. The Blackhawks are still my team as they have been my entire life. It would mark the first time that I share a Chicago championship with my own son who is now a huge sports fan, something I was never able to do with my own father. If in a week or two Messers Sharp, Toews, Byfuglien, Hossa, Kane, Niemi and the rest of the team who proudly wear the Indian Head sweater hoist Lord Stanley's Cup over their heads, we'll put "Chelsea Dagger" on at full volume, and looking toward the stars, I'll tip a glass of Czechvar in honor of my dad, toasting him with a hearty nazdravy, Tati.

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