NHL QUICK SHOTS

What a difference a generation makes
by Josh Brewster
Hockeytalk.biz | NHL Quick Shots

MAY 24, 2010 -- It was the spring of 1992, I was 25 years young and living in the Windy City, just out of college and money was lean. Thank god for Old Style beer and even cheaper malt liquor. Couldn’t wait to view the Stanley Cup Finals. Surely, this huge event would be on my television, wouldn’t it?

The Blackhawks were poised to seize the public’s imagination. Their opponent, the Pittsburgh Penguins, were the defending champions, featuring star power in Mario Lemieux at his peak with Jaromir Jagr riding shotgun as the flashy rookie.

But the Blackhawks had some ringers, too, and it should have been prime time for the Blackhawks to seize a city’s passion with future Hall-of-Famer and native Chicagoan Chris Chelios plus Jeremy Roenick, Steve Larmer and Michel Goulet, with Dominik Hasek as Ed Belfour’s backup.

Who would have thought that the series would make as much impact on the local sports scene as hurling a bucket of water at Niagara Falls? Who knew that despite their success, the Blackhawks would remain last among five pro franchises in Chicagoland?

1992: ZENITH OF A POOR DECISION

Having added the San Jose Sharks at the start of the 1991-92 season, the NHL featured 22 teams and eliminated only six for its 16-team playoff field.

In the opening round, the Blackhawks beat the Blues in six, then swept both the Wings and Oilers in four before suffering a four-game sweep of their own at the hands of the Penguins. A sad end to a very good season.

The saddest part, though, came off-ice, courtesy late owner Bill Wirtz.

Continuing his decades-long decision of refusing to allow local television broadcasts of home games, even during the Cup Final, Wirtz drove a stake in the heart of his own franchise’s fortunes for years by offering the home playoff games on pay-per-view, a stunningly bad decision in the third-largest market in the US.

The continued policy caused palpable resentment amongst hockey fans, and I was one of the resentful. Many casual hockey fans and curious observers simply ignored the Final in light of the club’s television availability policy.

The Cup Final came and went in Chicago, shamefully becoming an asterisk on the Windy City sports map as Michael Jordan’s Bulls upstaged them weeks later, winning their second NBA championship.

Hell, it didn’t even take a title for the Bulls to upstage the Blackhawks, because Wirtz kept the team cloistered in terms of media play, and most gallingly, choosing to do so during the NHL’s biggest event, one of the most significant moments in Chicago sports history. Moreover, that moment in Chicago history would go with little notice because of the incredible wedge that Wirtz had driven between the general public and his club.

After the loss to Pittsburgh, the Blackhawks went back to being a blip on the sports map in a very large cold-weather town, which is sacrilege to anyone who loves the sport.

Hockey was up against it in the Windy City, as Jordan and the Bulls were about to win six titles in eight years, and the Blackhawks should have seen to it that no one could get away from the Cup Final. Instead, they chose to see to it that few would have access at all.

The diminishment of hockey’s importance in Chicago and the disconnect with the public had been brewing for years. For example, I recall as a boy visiting Chicago on numerous occasions through the 1970s and early 80s and can remember seeing only one youngster with a Blackhawks tee shirt in all those years.

Chicago, as I’ve opined many times on my various radio shows, was a sleeping hockey giant. With weather as crappy as Detroit, Buffalo or Toronto, it is cold enough to make an outdoor rink for at least a few weeks during the winter, if not more. Why not more interest in hockey? The surrounding community had given us Chelios and Ed Olczyk, just to name two. The local rinks and grassroots efforts were fine, thanks in no small part, ironically, to Wirtz, who gave millions to local hockey organizations.

Bill Wirtz

...A Shakespearean figure, a stubborn old patriarch with loving children primed to succeed the old man...Like a modern-day King Lear, the Patriarch clings to his views and wanders alone...

SHAKESPEAREAN PROPORTIONS

Contemplating the late Wirtz’s attitude I am reminded of a Shakespearian figure, a stubborn old patriarch with loving children primed to succeed the old man.

The Patriarch doesn’t see what the youngsters see. They want to take the empire in another path. They argue, they are divided in viewpoint despite their love. Like a modern-day King Lear, the Patriarch clings to his views and wanders alone, his empire operating at diminished capacity over the years, unable to achieve the success he craves. Just as his children predicted, it’s exactly what came to pass.

The banishment of home television, son Rocky Wirtz knew all too well, had divorced the general public from a sport whose fans are amongst the most loyal, most ravenous.

“I think we lost about five hundred thousand people,” Jeremy Roenick once told Hockeytalk about the impact of Wirtz’s position on the fan base.

During the ensuing years, things began to sink for the Blackhawks as thousands stayed away.

Wirtz had famously earned the nickname “Dollar Bill” courtesy Chicago sports writer Bob Verdi, then saw ESPN name his club one of the worst sports franchises in 2004 and him the “third greediest” owner in sports in 2002. Quite a slap in the face for the man who served on the NHL Board of Governors for 18 years and was a key figure in the absorption of the World Hockey Association into the NHL, not to mention one of Chicagoland’s most charitable people in recent decades.

Since the 1960-61 Blackhawks defeated the Red Wings for the team’s last Stanley Cup, Chicago has appeared in four Stanley Cup Finals. The Blackhawks faced the Canadiens in 1965, 1971 and 1973, then the Penguins in 1992. This year’s club represents only the second Cup Final appearance in 37 years.

Bill helmed the club for 41 years. Upon his death in 2007, the team passed to son Peter, who transferred the chairmanship to Rocky immediately thereafter.

Rocky immediately reversed the club’s policy toward local television. He reached out to local fans like never before. He brought legends Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita, who were not on good terms with his father, back into the fold. Tony Esposito, too. Hell, Rocky even poached the Cubs’ marketing guy. He knew what so many Chicagoans know: It’s too damn cold in Chicago for hockey to be an afterthought. To prove it, he saw to it that the second Winter Classic was held at Wrigley Field.

Swiftly, the Blackhawks began to occupy more of the Chicago sports fan’s consciousness.

At the home opener in October 2007, not a month after his death, Rocky’s father Bill was booed posthumously at the United Center during memorial remarks in his honor prior to the game.

Despite the disagreement with his father over the club’s profile, Rocky must have felt those boos as only a son can, the barbs especially sharp considering that the Patriarch was a charitable man.

It has to be bittersweet for son Rocky to cheer his Blackhawks on as they play for the Cup. It is not easy to have a lifelong disagreement with a father, as he obviously did with regard to the television issue as pertains to the hockey team. It has to be tough for Rocky to know that his father didn’t live to see the upcoming Cup Final, which the Blackhawks are favored to win.

Now, the Hawks are a smash on local television, and top the league’s attendance. They’re all the rage in Chicago, and are arguably the number one team in town after years in the shadow of the Cubs, Sox, Bulls and Bears.

Rocky knows what the fans say about his father. Rocky knew the real Bill, however, not the “Dollar” Bill.

As Rocky cheers the club on, you can be sure that just as he is elated that his club is primed for a title, he regrets that Bill didn’t see what the Blackhawks became in 2010, on the ice, off the ice, and on television.

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