EXTRA: Mikita more than donut shop

A Tuesday night tribute to a Second City sporting greats. Photo by Gregory Tejeda

I'm not the biggest of hockey fans, yet even I appreciate the significance of Stan Mikita, who back when I was a kid was a star of the Chicago Blackhawks and even now remains one of the best hockey players this city ever saw.

Which means certain fans were in serious mourning when the word got out Tuesday that Mikita has passed on. He was 78. Chicago White Sox fans were given a mini-tribute to Mikita just prior to their 4-3 loss to the New York Yankees.

THE SAD PART is that I fear too many Chicagoans won't have a clue as to who Mikita was. Their knowledge of the Blackhawks likely doesn't go back any further than the Stanley Cup titles the team won during the past decade. It's almost as though anything happening prior to that just doesn't matter much.

Which means there's a generation who probably is hearing of Mikita's death, and is thinking up "Wayne's World" jokes -- because we all know the fictional Wayne Campbell hung out at the Stan Mikita's donut shop when he wasn't doing the cable access television show from his basement.

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Posting pictures at United Center entrances -- how else to ban them?

Chicago Blackhawks officials say four fans of the hockey team are now banned from the United Center for life because of their behavior at a weekend game against the Washington Capitals.

You know, the four who insisted on shouting racially-motivated taunts at a black Capitals player during his time in the penalty box!

THE BLACKHAWKS HAVE made all the appropriate statements how they’re appalled that any of their fans could have such horrid thoughts. A lot of people are engaging in verbiage meant to make themselves sound appropriately concerned.

Yet the truth is I don’t have a clue how you can possibly do anything to enforce this; unless you can find a way to put a Scarlet Letter, of sorts, on all the racist knuckleheads of our society.

Many of whom, if you branded them with a “K” (or a “B” for bigot) would probably take it as a badge of honor – that’s how twisted their thought processes are.

I don’t have a clue how the Blackhawks can say they’re banning four individuals from the stadium and their games. Do we literally post their pictures at the stadium entrance – with orders that the quartet be shot on sight if they try to attend a game.

DO WE EXTEND it to all the ticket services that none of the four ever be sold tickets to a Blackhawks game?

Maybe we should ban them from even following hockey games or teams? Although I don’t have a clue how this could be enforced.

Many people have gone out of their way to say the proper things, but I’m not convinced there’s going to be any serious change in attitudes or behavior.

Because a part of me believes that many sports fans are serious believers of Homer J. Simpson when he once said, “This ticket (to a ballgame) doesn’t just give me a seat. It also gives me the right, no the duty, to make a complete ass of myself.”

WHICH THOSE FOUR fans now banned from the hockey arena certainly did on Saturday when they insisted on implying that a black player doesn’t belong in hockey.

What I find almost humorous (but in a pathetic way) is the marketing campaign the National Hockey League has ongoing these days – “Hockey is for Everyone,” which is supposed to make the sport out to be something for all, and not just for white people from Canada.

In fact, the Blackhawks had a promotion based on the theme during their Thursday match against the Anaheim Ducks. It seems the message of a “safe, positive and inclusive environment for players and families regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, disability, sexual orientation and socio-economic status” didn’t take.

Because just two days later, the incident singling out Devante Smith-Pelly occurred. Although the Blackhawks’ lone black player, Anthony Duclair, said those four fans’ bad behavior wasn’t in any way unique, or isolated.

I’M SURE THOSE four fans, along with many others, are prepared to dismiss the whole affair as a lot of ‘politically correct’ trash talk about nothing. There probably isn’t anything that can be done to change such attitudes, or convince them of how big of knuckleheads they truly are.

Now I’ll admit to not being much of a hockey fan (although I appreciate the significance to the Chicago sports scene of a team that has three Stanley Cup championships in this decade). Part of it is that I have never ice-skated – and floor hockey is a second-rate game that filled up some childhood gym class time.

I’m sure that is true for many others – particularly in parts of the country where the existence of ice and snow is considered a myth.

Which means we’re likely to see more continued bad behavior – and most likely the instances of the four banished from the United Center finding a way to sneak into a Blackhawks game; while taking a perverse pride in being able to do so.

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Obama stealing presidential perk from Trump w/ Cubs White House visit?

Perhaps it’s only appropriate that the first president with solid Chicago ties (Ronald Reagan’s connection was living here one year when he was about 3) gets to host the White House visit of the first Chicago Cubs baseball team that was able to win anything in a long, long time.

President Barack Obama will pay tribute to the Chicago Cubs' World Series victory, similar to the belated tribute he gave to the Super Bowl-winning Chicago Bears of 1985. Just wondering if coach Mike Ditka (now known to be a Trump backer, wishes he could take back the jersey. Photographs provided by White House.

Although I’m wondering if there will be political partisans who will claim Barack Obama is stealing away a moment in the public eye from incoming President Donald J. Trump.

SERIOUSLY, THOSE PEOPLE are capable of complaining about anything and everything. I’m sure they’re already looking for excuses to claim they’re being snubbed.

And the fact that the Cubs, who won the World Series back in November, will make their celebratory White House visit on Monday, instead of waiting for the team’s next trip to Washington (June 26-29, to play the Nationals), is just the kind of fluff event that will cause some to get outraged!

It was reported this week by various news organizations (because this kind of fluff is easy to comprehend, unlike budgetary matters or the ongoing fight over how to kill off Obama’s political signature Affordable Care Act) that most of the Cubs players will be on hand at the White House for the event with Obama.

Although I’m wondering if any ballplayers decide to try to make their own political statement – similar to when Obama tried to pay tribute to the 1985 Chicago Bears team that won a Super Bowl, only to have Dan Hampton refuse to show up in protest.

Obama also paid tribute to the Chicago Blackhawks victories in various Stanley Cups.

LET’S NOT FORGET that pitcher Jake Arrieta befouled the celebratory mood of Cubs fans in early November when, on Election Day, he used his own Twitter account on Election Night to make comments interpreted by some as mocking those people who were appalled by Trump’s political victory.

In fact, let’s not forget that amongst Trump’s appointments to cabinet and staff positions was one for Todd Ricketts, the brother of Cubs team chairman Tom Ricketts, to be a deputy secretary in the Department of Commerce.

Does Clinton wish this event were hers?

There may be some people who think the Cubs should have waited until June so that the new president can have the honors. In fact, it has me wondering if Trump would be so petty as to demand his own personal event with the Cubs.

We know he loves positive press and certainly is capable of being petty and childish.

BUT FOR NOW, we’re going to get the Cubs appearing with Obama. His final public appearance in Chicago was Tuesday night, which could make the Cubs his final event with Chicago ties before he departs the White House at noon on Jan. 20.

I’m sure the event will be light-hearted fluff – one that I’m sure the ballplayers will use to make themselves feel all important. Although I suspect back in 2006 when the World Series-winning Chicago White Sox got a White House visit with then-President George W. Bush, they were probably more impressed Hugh Hefner invited the team to visit the Playboy Mansion.

Because after all, they’re ballplayers and the political people, including the president, are just about wetting themselves with glee at the thought of getting to meet them. But “Hef” had girls and booze on hand for his event!

If anything, it might have been worse for the Cubs if Hillary Clinton had won the presidential election – because then she’d be citing her lifelong ties to rooting for the team – while also probably trying to have burned and shredded every single photographic image that depicts her wearing a New York Yankees cap.

A MOVE SHE made back when she ran for the U.S. Senate – coming up with the convoluted logic of being a Cubs fan who rooted for the Yankees in the American League. An explanation that no legitimate baseball fan ever took seriously.

Then again, there’s Obama – who because he wound up settling in Hyde Park on the South Side adopted the Chicago White Sox. Whose team web site identifies Obama as their “first fan.”

Yet it was then-President George W. Bush who paid tribute to the last Chicago team to win a World Series -- the White Sox of '05.

Yet Obama on Monday will offer up his bit of public praise for the ball club and moment that made many hard-core White Sox fans nauseous; citing the idea of uniting Chicago into one.

That’s Bull! Then again, it takes basketball and our disappointment with the Bulls to truly unite the Chicago sporting mentality.

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Cubbie power elicits little more than a yawn from some of us these days

I might be a Chicago partisan, but I have to confess to caring less as to whether the Chicago Cubs are able to achieve anything in the National League baseball playoffs beginning Wednesday.

A hero, or a goat, by day's end!

It’s possible that by day’s end, they could be defeated by the Pittsburgh Pirates and the whole thing will be over and done with. Or maybe they’ll last to some point later in October. Who knows?

AND AS FAR as I’m concerned, who cares?

Now I must confess to being an American League partisan when it comes to professional baseball. What attention I do pay to professional baseball this October is going to be to that segment of the playoffs. I found last night's New York Yankees 3-0 loss to the Houston Astros much more intriguing.

It’s conceivable that the World Series could come with the Cubs in it, and I’d be rooting against the ball club that represents the North Side of the city.

I’m sure some people are going to try to argue the city ought to unite. I’m also intelligent enough to know that’s not going to happen!

NO MORE SO than back in 2005 when parts of Chicago were all caught up in White Sox fandom as they won two rounds of playoffs, then took four straight games in the World Series.

While other parts could have cared less. I don’t hold it against those people. I would have considered it phony if they had suddenly “converted” to Soxdom and the city’s American League team.

It reminds me of the television crews a decade ago that made the mistake of heading for the bar scene near Wrigley Field to find baseball fans going berserk – only to find a whole lot of apathy.
 

Some will be focused on United Center

They should have headed south to about 103^rd and Western or maybe around 63^rd and Kedzie – if not Halsted Street just west of U.S. Cellular Field.

I EXPECT TO find a whole lot of apathy in those places this week, and in coming weeks. Halsted, up around Addison Street, will be the place to hang out for scenes of baby blue-clad people who feel the need to engage in drunken stupidity to support the ball club.

The fact is that this two-team town IS the character of the Chicago baseball scene, and in fact the character of Chicago as the whole South Side/North Side dichotomy does dictate a lot of the way things are done in the Second City.

It may well be that the crowd of fanatics who decide to spend their Wednesday night following the Chicago Blackhawks’ home opener (it’s being played simultaneous to the Cubs’ playoff game against Pittsburgh) will be the hard-core of Soxdom who can’t bear to pay attention to the Cubs.
 

It's legitimate, even if you don't remember

Personally, I find it amusing in that it’s not the first time that Cubs playoff baseball upstaged another sports team. Remember 1984 when the Cubs’ final playoff game came the same time that the Chicago Sting won an actual championship for the city? Of course you don’t!

NO ONE DOES. Any ceremonies the Blackhawks had planned to celebrate their three-times-in-six-seasons Stanley Cup championship team will go by the wayside just like the Sting’s North American Soccer League title.

There will be those of us who will see the situation logically enough and will go about our lives Wednesday night – seeing the Cubs as something just a little too pointless to pay attention to on a regular basis. Perhaps it ought to be thought of as a virus that we somehow got inoculated against by our Sout’ Side existence.

Now none of this ought to be interpreted as making excuses for the level of mediocrity that came from the White Sox in 2015. It was a disappointing season, perhaps balanced out by the fact that the Cubs performed far better than anyone had a right to expect.

Besides, regardless of what happens Wednesday, we all know that the hard-core of Cubdom are going to forevermore talk of this year as a success – no matter what happens. How many people think of 1969 as some major moment; instead of just being the year they lost a division title to a team that had never finished higher than next-to-last place.
 

Will he garner a companion on goat list?

OR ANY OF those Cubs division title years of the past when the Cubs managed to fall short – just as in 1984 when Leon Durham put his name in the baseball history books and reinforced the idea that Bill Buckner’s ball-between-the-legs gaffe of two seasons later for the Boston Red Sox had little to do with the “Curse of the Bambino.”

It was about the fact that Buckner was an “ex-Cub” and Wednesday could wind up being yet another example of how Cubbiness overcomes common sense in determining who wins and who loses on the playing field.

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Can native American imagery ever be used tastefully by non-Indian masses?

I couldn’t help but wonder this past weekend about the use of Indian (I don't mean anyone from India) imagery by the masses.

How offensive are the Guides ...

The Chicago Tribune reported a story about a suburban LaGrange-based youth program that uses native imagery (including costumes, chants, drumming, etc.) in an attempt to teach the area’s young people proper moral values.

IT SOUNDS NICE, except that the Indian symbols are not real. They’re generic. And now, some people who really are of American Indian ethnic origins are taking offense, saying this group’s attempts at cultural education are meaningless and potentially harmful.

... and their Princess counterparts

This is bound to spur the debate from people who claim the Indians are overreacting to harmless fun because they don’t like having their own long-established beliefs challenged.

But does it have to be?

With all the athletic teams (including our city’s very own Chicago Blackhawks Stanley Cup championship team) that rely on Indian-implying names, could it be possible for such images to be used in a way that they really do pay tribute to the people whose ancestors really are native to this country?

Decades of absurdity in the name of baseball

PERSONALLY, I THINK the answer is “yes.” But I also think that respectful images would be so unrecognizable to the masses that they wouldn’t get it.

 

Because there wouldn’t be any of that “Tomahawk Chop” nonsense (think Atlanta Braves or Florida State Seminoles). Those headdresses and face paint worn by certain Blackhawks fans would wither away.

And as for Chief Wahoo (the Cleveland Indians this weekend wore the block-letter “C” on their caps when they fought the Chicago White Sox to see which team will finish this season in Third Place, rather than Fourth, although the logo could be seen all over Cleveland’s Progressive Field) and the Washington Redskins (a phrase always meant to be a slur implying that those Indian people weren’t really human), those would be so blatantly offensive that only the biggest nitwits would support them.

An attempt at respect in Washington state

It’s a shame they’re only at the minor league level, but I actually think the Spokane Indians (a long-time franchise in Washington state that currently plays in the Class A Northwest League) are on the right track.

THE CITY ITSELF is named for a tribe once native to the area, and when making sure their team logos weren’t offensive, they worked out a deal with the Spokane Nation.

That deal included an alternate team logo that includes writing in Salish – the tribe’s native language. It shows a certain respect for the tribe, which also is significant to the non-Indian population of Spokane (86 percent white, and only 2 percent American Indian) since it tells about their city’s origins.

Although without any feathers, tomahawks or other generic images, I’m sure some people are too clueless to realize what is happening.

An attitude that I’m sure is common to Chicago, where I wonder how many people realize the significance of Black Hawk.

What would Chief Black Hawk think?

HE WAS THE chief of Sac and Fox tribe (whose survivors are now heavily located in Oklahoma) who actually led a war against U.S. troops because he resented the idea that his people were being told they had to leave their native home along the Mississippi River in Illinois and Iowa.

His forces were defeated (largely because even his own tribal people weren’t unified about what should be done), and after a short prison term, but was eventually turned into a symbol of unity of Indians being subservient to their white neighbors.

By now, he’s nothing more than an Indian head that symbolizes generations of bad hockey playing – three Stanley Cup championships in six years doesn’t erase decades of failure. The actual image of an Indian head doesn’t come across as comical as some (he’s no Chief Wahoo).

But I’m sure the people who will defend the Blackhawks to the death are the same ones who want to believe the Indian Guides program (which even its one-time YMCA sponsor now backs away from) is worth an equal battle.

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Will parade route alteration be a blessing in disguise for Hawks fans?

We’re likely to get more crummy weather on Thursday, which is what provoked city officials into altering the official celebration of the Chicago Blackhawks’ winning of a Stanley Cup championship – the team’s third in six years and only their sixth in their 89 years of existence.

Yours for only $105.29!!!

The fact that the celebration is now confined to the roughly 60,000 people who can fit into Soldier Field rather than the 2 million or so who could fit into Grant Park and turn it into a muddy mess could leave many millions miffed at their inability to be a part of the celebration.

THAT IS WHAT caused city officials to decide to have a parade from the West Side leading to Michigan Avenue, before it then heads to the Near South Side and the Park District-owned stadium that the Chicago Bears treat as their own.

Specifically, the parade will start at Washington Street and Racine Avenue – about 10 blocks further west than originally intended.

It is meant to create more space for people to line up along a parade route and feel like they’re a part of the happenings because they’re not going to be able to get the “free” tickets to Soldier Field that are now being scalped for several hundred dollars apiece.

I actually wish it could have been extended further. Literally to that “Madhouse on Madison” we call the United Center, where the Blackhawks call home.

IT COULD HAVE created more of a feeling that the team is a part of Chicago, rather than just for people who can afford the pricey tickets (several hundred dollars apiece if you don’t want to sit in the upper reaches of the arena) to actually go to a game.

If anything, it would be similar to the celebration the Chicago White Sox had back in 2005 when they finally won a World Series title for the first time in 88 years.

That parade started at U.S. Cellular Field, passed through several South Side neighborhoods, then wound up downtown for the big rally.
 

RAUNER: It's about the Hawks, not the guv

As much as some people might want to think of the downtown conclusion as the big event, I most remember the sight of those open-air buses passing through Chinatown.

THE COMBINATION OF the Sox and the aura of the neighborhoods truly made for a unique celebration – certainly more memorable than the sight of drunken revelers screaming like banshees every time a Blackhawks player says something insipid (which, let’s be honest, is about 98 percent of any sports-related celebration).

Could we get something similar as the fans line up along Washington Street, Des Plaines Avenue and Monroe Street to cheer on their favorite Blackhawks?

Could that be more memorable than anything that winds up happening inside Soldier Field, and that most of us will wind up watching on television screens that officials plan to set up outside of the stadium.

So that we can pretend we were part of the festivities! Although let's hope that Gov. Bruce Rauner, who says he plans to attend, doesn't try to draw too much attention to himself -- or else he'll get such a negative reaction from fans who want nothing but Hawks that it will make the recent event in suburban Oak Forest where organized labor activists gave da Guv the middle finger seem downright pleasant by comparison.

ALTHOUGH IF YOU think about it, is watching the celebration on television all that fake? Most of us have probably never been to a hockey game. The Stanley Cup itself was an event we watched on television.

We matter more as television ratings points (about half of the Chicago television market was tuned to Game Six on Monday) than as attendance figures.

In fact, sports itself is something we view on monitors. I have known some people who consider themselves hard-core fans who admit they rarely, if ever, go to a game.

But Thursday could be an experience for the hard-core fan, unless the rainfall winds up being so intense that it causes an outbreak of illness come Friday from people who didn’t have enough sense to “listen to your mother” and wear a raincoat!

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Many people are getting their giggles from the Korea Times headline that proclaims Chicago Bears win Stanley Cup. Did da Bears really start playing hockey at such an elite level as to win its championship? Or is there someone illiterate enough in U.S. sports culture to not know a football team from a hockey team? Personally, I wonder if it would make sense if it were known as the Staley Cup. Then we could claim the Bears won a trophy named for A.E. Staley – the Decatur, Ill., company that founded the team

EXTRA: We’re in a nowhere land when it comes to Chicago sports scene

The Chicago Blackhawks beat Tampa Bay 2-0 on Monday, giving them their third Stanley Cup championship in the past six seasons.

The goal that clinched victory

It has put the Blackhawks in a position where the team of this decade has the potential to become a historically-great hockey team, along with one of the best Chicago sports franchises of all time.

BECAUSE LET’S BE honest. Winning teams is not what Chicago sports is all about. Somebody who can only back a winner would be ever so frustrated if they were forced to root for the professional franchises that come from the Second City.

If anything, the fact about the Blackhawks that makes them a prototypical image for our city isn’t that they won their third Stanley Cup championship in recent years, but that Monday’s victory was the sixth Stanley Cup championship they EVER have won.

Two of them came back in the 1930s, and the third was in 1961.

Which means so many decades of hockey fans are used to coming up short year after year after year.

THE IDEA OF a perennial winner on the ice is something we ought to savor while it lasts. Because none of our teams has that New York Yankees-like aura where it is expected that when the team gets old, they will figure out a way to rebuild.

Our teams never get to that level, and are filled with countless players who never managed to live up to their potential.

He gave the Hawks the lead

Perhaps it is because I came of age in the 1970s, when the baseball scene was year after year of seeing which baseball team would stink the joint out worse than the other and where the Chicago Bears would think it a completely successful, potentially even historic, season, if they made it to the first round of the playoffs before getting knocked out of contention.

I still remember that very scenario from 1977 and the way Bears fans got all worked up at the thought of even being in a playoff game.

NOW I KNOW the Bears went on to win that Super Bowl following the 1985 season. Although the fact that quality Bears teams were unable to follow up with another championship is more the norm.

A memorable moment a decade later

Just as the Chicago White Sox are still flying that lone 2005 World Series title banner because they didn’t win another.

But which looks downright outstanding considering how the Chicago Cubs haven’t even accomplished that much!

I’m not a big hockey fan (baseball and soccer in the form of equipo Mexico, along with college basketball of the Illinois Wesleyan Titans of my alma mater are my rooting interests). But I realize how unique it is for one of Chicago’s teams to come up with a “three titles in six years” streak.

IT CERTAINLY SHOWS how incredibly off-the-wall it was for the Chicago Bulls to win two streaks of three straight NBA titles during the 1990s. A taste of Yankee-esque attitude for the city still remembered for having one of its teams getting caught throwing a World Series (even if eight ballplayers were eventually acquitted in court).

The fact that the Bulls have won nothing since, and in some seasons have become such a disgrace to the local sports scene, is more in line with the character of the Chicago sports scene.

Still waiting 3 decades later for another Super Bowl title

So it is with some sense of joy that we should perceive the Blackhawks’ victory (and think that those killjoys from Nashville, Tenn.; Anaheim, Calif.; and Tampa/St. Petersburg, Fla., all tried to take down da Hawks and turn them into some sort of bully in need of a beating).

Because it’s just a matter of time not all that far off in the future that the Blackhawks will be back to mediocrity and “2014-15” will be just another banner hanging from the rafters at the United Center that fans manage to ignore while sitting in costly seats and guzzling down overpriced concessions.

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One down, three to go!

The Chicago Blackhawks gave us that come-from-behind victory earlier this week against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game One of the Stanley Cup finals.

Will this pennant become more obsolete?

Three more victories, and Chicago gets its third pro hockey championship in six years.

WHICH WOULD BE something of significance for Chicago sports fans. Considering that the Blackhawks have only five championships in their 80-something years of existence.

And before that 2010 title, the last Stanley Cup victory for the Blackhawks was back in 1961.

The point being that while the Blackhawks might be an “Original Six” franchise, they’re not exactly one with a significant winning tradition. Taking another championship title this year would make this era’s Blackhawks franchise the highlight of the franchise history.

Enough for us to forget Bobby Hull or Stan Mikita (and I don’t want to read any e-mailed gags about doughnut shops) or anyone else who played all those years ago.

CONSIDERING THAT CHICAGO sports don’t exactly have histories of winning (our sports franchises usually require fans to endure some pretty sucky ball teams), this is an era that will not be forgotten.

It’s not exactly on the same level as those Chicago Bulls teams that won two strings of three-straight-championships during the 1990s.

But they are teams that will make our sports fans think about ice and skating – even the fair-weather fans (I have to confess that none of the pro hockey teams I have seen include the Blackhawks; I’ve never seen a match of theirs in my life) who probably don’t comprehend much of what is happening on the ice.

Who's thinking about doughnuts?!?

Except that fights occasionally break out. And the Blackhawks seem to get whiny opponents from the south to play against – it makes me wish this year’s Stanley Cup final could have been a Chicago-New York Rangers match-up instead of the one we got!

SUCH AS NASHVILLE trying to restrict sales of tickets in their arena to local residents and Tampa Bay wanting to forbid anyone from wearing a Blackhawks jersey in their arena anywhere where it would be seen by a television camera.

Strangely enough, that hang-up seems to be common for a lot of sports teams based in cities that weren’t major league a half-century or so ago.

Which is something rather lame, if you think about it. What kind of place is so insecure that they have to create a phony image that the whole world revolves around themselves?

How will this cover be topped!?!

If the Lightning were really into the hang of things, they’d want to have Blackhawks faithful sitting in their stands, buying their beer and other overpriced concessions, then looking rather gloomy when their team lost.

WHICH MIGHT BE the reason I’m hoping there’s a Blackhawks victory Saturday night in Game Two.

That would set up a possibility for the Stanley Cup to be a four-game sweep, with victories Three and Four coming next week at the United Center.

Let a couple of Lightning fans show up in Chicago and find themselves to be an insignificant minority. So much so that Blackhawks fans won’t be bothered by what they choose to wear.

Although I have to admit to being curious t see how we’ll behave if we get a championship-winner in Chicago proper.

WILL OUR FANS wind up acting stupid and rioting to express our glee, as has happened in certain other cities across the country when their professional (or collegiate) teams came through on the athletic field (or turf or ice or wood, or whatever substance they happen to be playing on).

For those "fans" who can't comprehend what happens on the ice

Then, we can move on to trying to figure out just how far removed from championship quality our baseball and football franchises will be in ’15.

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EXTRA: Thank Gawd da Hawks managed to spare us Estevez’ ego

A part of me wants to write SUCK IT EMILIO, YOU TWITTER BLOWHARD!!! SUCK IT!!!

Does anybody sing, "Here Come the Lightning?"

But I’d rather not drop to the same juvenile level of actor Emilio Estevez’ temperament, who reacted to the fact that the Anaheim Ducks’ hockey franchise managed to drag the NHL playoffs matchup to a seventh-and-final game.

THAT GAME WAS played Saturday night, and the Blackhawks managed to pull off a 5-3 victory, meaning they will advance to the Stanley Cup finals, where they will play the Tampa Bay Lightning for the NHL championship.

Estevez apparently was rooting for the suburban Los Angeles franchise to make it to the Stanley Cup finals, and expressed that viewpoint by being one of those annoying people who express their enthusiasm by forgetting to take their finger off the CAPS key when sending out their e-mails or writing their Twitter tweets.

So we’re spared the thought of what could very easily have been – a Stanley Cup championship for bragging rights for the best hockey team in the world being played by Tampa/St. Petersburg, Fla., and Anaheim, Calif. Only somebody who thought the “Mighty Ducks” films weren’t totally trite could get excited about that matchup.

Blackhawks can now get all the more worked up as they try beginning Wednesday for their sixth Stanley Cup victory ever, and their third in the past six seasons. So, Here Come the Hawks!

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A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): We can’t beat stinkin’ Anaheim?

I’m never sure what to think of these bets that political people make with government officials in other cities when our professional sports franchises play each other at key points in the season.

Can Chi really lose to Ducks?

We’re at that stage right now in professional hockey, where our very own Blackhawks are taking on the Ducks of suburban Los Angeles (Anaheim, Calif., to be exact).

THE DUCKS HAVE a 1-0 game lead, but the two teams play again Tuesday night, then come to Chicago and the United Center for a pair of games.

To that end, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has a bet with Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait – each mayor put up a locally-brewed brand of beer and some sort of local spicy condiment (chili peppers grown in Anaheim, against that neon green relish that you find on an authentic Vienna beef hot dog), along with a charitable contribution to a local organization.

Becoming A Man in Chicago as opposed to ACT Anaheim.

The point of these bets is less about engaging in a gamble as it is to promote products associated with the home cities.

WHICH MAKES ME wonder if everybody involved would be better off if their “home” team were to lose. Considering that the actual ballplayers for our “home” team aren’t from Chicago and rarely locate themselves here, I doubt the Blackhawks players are all that concerned about the honor and fame and the glorious name of the Second City.

Although I can remember how back when Richard M. Daley was mayor, it always seemed like these bets involved so many local products that it seemed like the companies were involved trying to get their name included. A loss and their payoff would be great publicity.

So what should we think about the Blackhawks/Ducks matchup leading up to the Stanley Cup championship; aside from the fact that it would be thoroughly humiliating for a Chicago team to lose to a franchise named for a thoroughly-mediocre Emilio Estevez film?

What else is notable on the shores of Lake Michigan located between suburban Evanston and Hammond, Ind.?

PROM NIGHT GOES UGLY:  As one who grew up in and around suburban Calumet City, I couldn’t help but notice the weekend story of the local boy who was killed in a car accident early Saturday after having spent Friday night at the prom.

Another Prom Night casualty. Photograph provided by T.F. North High School

Aaron Dunigan, the T.F. North student and quarterback of the football team, was with friends at the school’s prom, held at the Hyatt Regency hotel in downtown Chicago. The car he was riding in was hit by another vehicle. The driver of that car also was killed.

Police reports indicate that the person who was driving the students’ car was under the influence of drugs and now faces related criminal charges. The high school says there were three students in the car, and that the others besides Dunigan survived their injuries.

Not that Prom Night is free of potential for hazards. Although this incident seems to be so pointless that we can’t help but wonder “Why?”

ROOT, ROOT, ROOT FOR THE WHITE SOX: The Chicago White Sox’ 7-3 victory over the Oakland Athletics on Sunday was ever so significant because of the atrocious start to the season the White Sox had.

It gave them a record of 17-17, or .500. Considering there was one point when their record in games played on the road was 2-12, the fact that they’re now half and half over all is quite a comeback.

Still 4 1/2 months to play ball. Who knows what will happen?

Heck, a 2-1 extra-inning victory on Monday against the Cleveland Indians made the White Sox a team with a winning record. But considering that it took a three-game sweep against Oakland, along with winning series against Milwaukee, Detroit and Cincinnati, just to be mediocre shows how below their skill level they were playing during April.

We’ll just have to wait and see if the Sout’ Siders can keep up winning ways in coming weeks, or if the past week-and-a-half winds up being the high point of 2015!

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Blackhawks/Predators a hockey match-up to see who’s more juvenile?

To me, the first round of playoffs for the National Hockey League is coming across as who can behave in a more juvenile manner.

Our Chicago Blackhawks (favored at 8-1 odds to win the Stanley Cup championship later this summer) begin their athletic quest by playing the Nashville Predators (whom I still think sound like some sort of pro wrestling team).

THE BLACKHAWKS PULLED off a 4-3 victory Wednesday, and Game Two is Friday night in Nashville before they return for a pair of matches next week at the United Center.

Yet the activity has gained attention because of the way in which Nashville team officials seem determined to create a “home ice” advantage for the Predators (whose odds of winning the whole thing are 12-1).

This was the team that altered the way it made tickets available for the matches in Nashville so as to make sure out-of-town fans got as few chances as possible to buy tickets. People initially could only buy them at local Kroger’s stores, then were allowed to buy them on-line, if they lived in their local television station’s viewing area.

There also was the “sing-a-long” meant during the National Anthem prior to the match, which was meant to discourage the Blackhawks fans’ alleged tradition of making noise during the anthem so as to show their spirit – which Nashville fans are claiming is a sign of disrespect.

I’M SURE NASHVILLE fans want to believe that the whole rest of the country is about to demonize the Blackhawks and their fan base. I’ll be the first to admit that the Blackhawks fan behavior during the anthem is a trivial gesture that borders on dumb.

A part of me can’t really bring myself to defend Blackhawks fan behavior by claiming we’re showing our team spirit by drowning out the anthem. It does make us look like a bunch of boors.

But on the other hand, I can’t help but think that Nashville is showing why it is nothing more than “minor league” in professional baseball. The fact that it’s getting all worked up over trying to control the crowd really does extend the bush league mentality to hockey.

Now I’m not much of a hockey fan – to be honest, I have seen more games in person by the long-defunct Chicago Cougars than I have the Blackhawks.

SO I’M SURE there will be a few crackpots out there who will insist I have no right to an opinion about this flare-up. Then again, this is the land of the free and the home of the brave, and I’m more than willing to express my thoughts rather than think acting like a drunken idiot during the anthem is a cause célèbre.

Which is why I can’t help but take up the cause of the Hawks fans, whom I would only hope would show some level of class when they travel to Nashville – and then again when the playoffs resume next week on the West Side (where I can’t help but think the bulk of Nashvillians would be too scared to travel to).

Personally, I always find part of the crowd atmosphere that makes a sporting event worth attending is to have a mixture of people rooting for each team. Those teams that try to control the crowds to silence the opposition usually wind up being deadly dull to watch.

Is this Nashville’s way of showing that it really doesn’t deserve to have any franchises in the major sports leagues? Let them root for the Volunteers in SEC sports, and Sounds minor league baseball during the summer.

IT COMES ACROSS as being as juvenile as when the U.S. national team for soccer insists on playing the Tri-colors of Mexico in small cities with tiny Latino populations. Which is why it was a plus to see the U.S./Mexico match this week played before a full-capacity crowd at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas – which the U.S. wound up winning 2-0 despite the presence of so many fans rooting for Equipo Mexico.

Of course, the ultimate way to silence this minor league way of thinking about sports fan behavior is to settle the matter on the ice.

Let the Blackhawks go on to win this first round of playoffs and advance toward the Stanley Cup, while the Predators go back home in defeat.

And those Predators fans can reminisce about their behavior once again during the first week of May – that’s when the Iowa Cubs travel to Nashville for a four-game series and the Cubs’ top-level minor league affiliate can issue another drubbing to the Music City on behalf of Chicago.

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The Redskins used to be about Dixie; the team name will change in due time

With the Chicago Bears headed off to the Maryland suburbs that contain the stadium used these days by the Washington Redskins, we’re going to get our own earful of the controversy about whether or not the D.C. entry in the National Football League has a tacky, offensive and racist nickname.

People in positions as prominent as President Barack Obama have said they don’t approve of the term that was meant as a slur against those whose ethnic origins trace back to the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

WHO SURE WEREN’T white, and to whom the phrase was meant to dehumanize them (they didn’t even have real skin like “normal” people).

So yes, it is obvious that the nickname is tacky, and if the Washington ball club were at all sensitive to the real world, they would have ditched the nickname decades ago.

But the team owners have dug themselves in, claiming that to change the name now would be to disrespect the decades of sporting glory the team has brought to the nation’s capital.

Which is stupid. But if they want to take the abuse that goes along with an offensive nickname (rather than worrying about the quality of their offensive line), then so be it. It's not a "badge of honor."

PERSONALLY, I’M NOT getting too worked up because I really do believe the day will come when “Redskins” will disappear. It will be a low-key change. And the only people who will have an objection will be those ideological twits who are determined to go to their graves defending a status quo that gave them a right to look down upon anyone who wasn’t exactly like themselves.

Do fans of 'Redskins' think they're still at Griffith Stadium

What makes me think this is the fact that the Washington team’s own history shows signs of change to the atmosphere and culture of professional football in the capital city.

This was once such a Southern-oriented team – one that took advantage of the fact that it was the only NFL franchise south of the Mason/Dixon Line and east of the Mississippi River where they marketed themselves as the South’s team.

Back in the days of the Civil Rights movement when Southerners were convinced those Damn Yankees were taking over the capitol, probably the only thing out of Washington they had use for was the Redskins. Now, they probably even regard the team as the “enemy.”

THIS IS THE franchise that was the last to integrate to include black athletes on the roster. 1962 – they even make the Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies look good, by comparison.

Those teams never had Illinois-born George Lincoln Rockwell and his American Nazi Party goons protesting in support of the concept of, “keeping the Redskins white.” Which is such a ridiculous concept, if you think about it.

So many changes since then

This also is the football team whose own marching theme has been re-written throughout the years so as to tone down all the lyrical references to scalping, the lyrics written in a style as though Tonto were talking and the bit at the end where the melody of the song broke out into a line of “Dixie.” (The line about “Fight for old D.C.!” for a little while was “Fight for old Dixie”).

Somewhere in my belongings is an old vinyl record album of NFL Marching Songs from 1960 – which meant that it includes the version of the song for the Redskins as it existed back then.

TO THE MODERN ear set, hearing a Washington-song end off with the unofficial anthem of the South is bizarre. Just as I’m sure in future years, it will be equally bizarre for D.C. football fanatics to think their team used a slur as its image.

We will get to that point someday. It is inevitable.

Just as one other fact remains true. “Hail to the Redskins” may well be one of the oldest marching themes for an NFL franchise. But it’s pretty lame compared to “Bear Down, Chicago Bears.”

It doesn't have to be about 'Redskins' or Chief Wahoo!

 

Go Bears!!!!!!!!!!!! And maybe Washington could take lessons from our very own Chicago Blackhawks about how one can use native imagery in their identity without being so blatantly offensive.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: I don't agree with publications that think they're taking a high-minded stance by refusing to acknowledge the nickname "Redskins." It exists. It ought to be reported as such to the point where we make it uncomfortable for it to be used by the team. Otherwise, it comes across like we're merely ignoring facts we'd rather not acknowledge.