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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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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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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We’ve come a long way, security-wise, when it comes to victory parades

It seems like such an innocent time – the Chicago Bears won the Super Bowl and fans turned out in downtown near the Picasso statue to publicly celebrate.

How packed will this space be on Friday?

Then-Mayor Harold Washington braved the wintry January day with his Bears stocking cap, and the fans rejoiced on that day 27 years ago.

FAST-FORWARD TO EIGHT years ago – in the days after the Chicago White Sox won the first World Series title for a Chicago ball club since 1917. The ball club boarded a bus at U.S. Cellular Field, then drove along a parade route through the Near South Side neighborhoods and wound up in the downtown area for the public celebration.

But when sports fans gather downtown on Friday to celebrate the Chicago Blackhawks’ victory this week, taking the Stanley Cup with a 4-games to 2 victory over the Boston Bruins, they’re going to see a more intense level of security on hand than any other athletic victory celebration this city has ever thrown.

Even compared to the 2010 celebration when the Blackhawks managed to win their first Stanley Cup championship in 49 years.

The Friday festivities will have the feel of that White Sox celebration (which considering the ball club’s dreadful play this year feels like a dream, maybe it never happened?) in that there will be the parade with hockey players on board a bus and assorted puck-heads lined up along Washington Street to watch the players pass by.

BUT THEY’RE BEING led into Grant Park, where the fans who persist in sticking around for a victory rally will be spread around a huge area.

Law enforcement officials say that spreading them out – rather than having them crammed into the canyon-lake space of a downtown street – makes it easier for them to maintain order.

Which in the wake of the explosions that killed a few and injured many at the Boston Marathon earlier this year is something that officials want.

The Chicago Tribune reported that there haven’t been specific threats or any evidence to indicate anyone is planning to do anything on Friday at a Blackhawks victory rally. But they claim to want to be extra-careful.

THE LAST THING that Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants is for his victory party (the first in which he will preside over as mayor) to be thrown awry by someone thinking they can use it to cause mayhem.

Noting the fact that the bombs used at the Boston Marathon were small devices brought into the area in backpacks, officials have made it clear anyone bringing any kind of bag into Grant Park for the rally will be searched.

It would be easy to just tell people to ditch the bags. But then again, there is a whole generation that relies on their overstuffed backpacks to haul around their possessions.

Telling people to ditch the backpacks would be as practical as the current orders that prohibit people from bringing cellular telephones into courthouses.

BUT IT ALSO means that the hundreds of thousands of people who will be estimated to attend Friday’s rally will largely be so far from the hockey players that they’re going to appear to be nothing but red blobs.

This is a closer view than you'll get Friday

The PA system had better work flawlessly, or else no one is going to be capable of hearing anything anybody has to say. Not that the athletes are all that eloquent! But the aura of the Cup will mean that nobody will particularly care.

Personally, I don’t plan to attend.

The distance will take away any sense that we’re actually seeing the Blackhawks. The security will make it feel like we’re in a generic crowd-scene – and not one of the rare moments when a Chicago sports team actually manages to win something!

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We’re on the verge of something freakish in world of Chicago sports

Beginning Wednesday, just three seasons after winning a Stanley Cup championship, the Chicago Blackhawks will take on the Boston Bruins in a chance at winning another National Hockey League championship.

Saturday's "hero"

There might be some sports fans who say, “So what?”

YET THOSE OF us who follow the Chicago sports scene who have any sense of history know just how incredible it is that the Blackhawks are in the running. There is a core of players to both of those teams who will be able to say they brought multiple championships to the Second City.

That just doesn’t happen here!

The Chicago White Sox managed to make a playoff appearance just three seasons after winning a World Series title in 2005 – but managed to get knocked out in the first round in 2008 with only one victory. Which only looks good compared to the Chicago Cubs team that qualified for the playoffs that same season and got swept out in three straight losses.

For all the love that local sports fans show to the Chicago Bears’ Super Bowl champion for the 1985 season (played in early ’86), the reality is they only won that one title. They didn’t repeat anytime soon, or ever!

IF ANYTHING, THE White Sox are typical of the Chicago sports mentality – their league champion of 1959 and the World Series of eight years ago seem to be lone hits that a generation of fans will love because they were so rare.

Typical one-and-done local hero

The last time that Chicago sports teams repeated as a champion as quickly as the Blackhawks might were the Chicago Bears, who won NFL titles in 1941, ’43 and ’46. Or there’s the Chicago Sting, who won North American Soccer League titles in 1981 and '84.

 

Although the fact that the 1984 championship game (the “Soccer Bowl”) was also the last match ever played in that league’s history makes it seem like a lesser feat.

There’s also the Chicago Cubs, who used to be respectable back in the days of my great-grandfathers. Take the Depression era, when the Cubs were contenders every season – and actually won the National League championship every third (1929, ’32, ’35 and ’38) year.

The base thief with the memorable homer

THAT’S HOW LONG it has been since something along the lines of what the Blackhawks (who until a few years ago hadn’t won a championship since 1961) might accomplish has taken place in Chicago.

Now I know there is the exception. Somebody out there is reading this and screeching and screaming about the Chicago Bulls.


Yes, it counts!!!

Back in the 1990s, they had those two streaks (1991-93 and 1996-98) of three National Basketball Association championships each. Michael Jordan, paired with Scottie Pippen. Chicago’s answer to the “Murderers Row” version of the New York Yankees led by Babe Ruth, paired with Lou Gehrig.

But that era only goes to prove my point – it was the ultimate aberration. Chicago’s little bit of a taste of Yankees-style domination; and they haven’t been able to come close to a title since then.

ANYBODY WHO THINKS that the Bulls are the character of Chicago sports doesn’t have a clue. If anything, that game Jordan had back in 1987 when he scored 61 points in a 117-114 loss to the Atlanta Hawks is SO in character with Chicago sports.

Six titles? Or 61 points in a loss?

As is the mediocrity we’re seeing this year; both at U.S. Cellular and Wrigley fields.

So as we go into the Stanley Cup finals this week, we should appreciate the fact that it already is an accomplishment that the Blackhawks didn’t just fade away after their 2010 championship. We may get another title, and another excuse for a parade or rally of sorts come the end of June.

Although those overtime victories against the Detroit Redwings and Los Angeles Kings that allowed the Blackhawks to advance to the championship round have created enough sporting memories to be remembered for decades to come.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Chicago vs. Boston matchup – the first hockey “Original Six” championship since 1979 – is way more “old school” than the NBA championship round now taking place. San Antonio, Texas vs. Miami sounds like it ought to be the matchup for the Dixie Series – the old minor league baseball championship played by the AA-level Texas League and Southern Association champions.

Blackhawks creating an athletic jolt for Chicago that varies from fan to fan to fan

Confession time. I’m not much of a hockey fan.

So I am not one of these people who got all ecstatic on Sunday at the thought that the Chicago Blackhawks qualified to play in the Stanley Cup finals for the first time in 18 seasons, and have a serious chance to win their fourth National Hockey League championship ever in their 84-year-history.

NOW I CAN follow what happens on the rink. I have been to a few hockey games in my life (ironically enough, never a Blackhawks game), including one when I was a kid at the old International Ampitheater involving the now defunct Chicago Cougars. When also considering that these men are trying to maneuver about and play a sport while also skating on ice (something I’m not good at), I can respect what they do.

But there was just something about hockey that always left me cold. Literally. I can’t help but always think that these guys ought to come in out of the cold, then go out and play soccer come spring (I’m looking forward to the World Cup tourney to be played later this year).

A part of me thinks that hockey should have long been finished with its season and championship playoffs, instead of still creating ice to play on until nearly the beginning of summer.

But I am not blind to the emotions of those people around me, those Chicago natives who see how often our professional sports teams are capable of playing like cattle droppings. So the idea of seeing a sports team actually make it to the championship round is just too irresistable for them to latch onto.

THE BLACKHAWKS QUALIFIED for the Stanley Cup finals by beating the San Jose Sharks on Sunday, and may have to wait an entire week now before learning who they will play.

The Philadelphia Flyers could clinch their spot in the finals as soon as Monday. Or, we could get the ultimate comeback story in athletics this year, should the Montreal Canadiens actually drag their playoff series out to a Game Seven on Friday.

I have to confess, a part of me would like to see that happen (even though I will now incur the wrath of Philadelphians). For I wouldn’t mind seeing something resembling an “old school” athletic championship.

There is something about the idea of two “Original Six” teams making it to the championship that is satisfying. How much more “old school” can one get than Chicago versus Montreal (perhaps Montreal versus Toronto, but not much else).

WHICH MAKES ME wonder. If the Canadiens were to make it, who would be the underdog. The Canadiens are a storied franchise with many great moments, players and championships. But they haven’t done much lately. They haven’t won a Stanley Cup since 1993, while the Blackhawks haven’t played in the finals since 1992.

As much as some people get a kick out of the story of the resurgence of the Chicago Blackhawks franchise, there might be others who would prefer to see the resurgence of Montreal as a significant hockey entity.

I couldn’t help but notice the tease on the cover of the latest Sports Illustrated that asks, “Is Montreal for Real?” Which some will argue means that the Habs are jinxed.

Then again, the actual cover story was about soccer’s popularity around the world – showing children in Angola kicking about a ball in the middle of a street. Somehow, I think real football’s place in sports is too strong to be taken down by the so-called cover jinx.

AT LEAST IF the Philadelphia Flyers make to the Stanley Cup finals, the Blackhawks would be the undisputed favorite. I can’t envision anyone seriously enjoying the thought of a Philly championship. Why do you think so many people were overjoyed to see the New York Yankees take the World Series last season?

But whether the Stanley Cup this season winds up Chicago/Montreal or Chicago/Philadelphia, for many of us here in Chicago it is going to be about seeing whether the Blackhawks can put an end to what is the longest current streak for a team without winning a Stanley Cup title – 49 years, and counting if the Canadiens/Flyers somehow manage to win.

I’m sure the hard-core Blackhawks fans can rattle off the details of the Stanley Cup champions of 1934, 1938 and 1961, to which they would like to add the year 2010. Personally, I had to look it up to find out that the 1938 champions remain to this day the Stanley Cup winner with the worst regular season (14-25) record.

For others of us, it is about seeing such a title as the completion of the resurgence of this franchise that some people once wanted to believe was dead and meaningless to the local sporting scene, and where it literally took a death for the rebirth of the team to begin.

FOR SOME OF us, it will be about painting their faces red and wearing those baggy hockey jerseys that do such a wonderful job of covering up how big our girths have become in recent years – mostly from doing little more than sitting around watching professional sports events on television.

Personally, I will be hoping that the Blackhawks can put to rest the talk of how their franchise never wins anything. As of Sunday, the odds on the Blackhawks winning the whole thing were at 2/5.

And with the Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup, the whole country now gets to be treated to what arguably is the best official theme song of any sports franchise in this country.

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It has been 49 years since Topps issued this card depicting Chicago's last (to-date) major league hockey champion.

Blackhawks’ performance yet another step away from Chicago sporting tradition

I’m not much of a hockey fan, yet I will be the first to admit I would like to see the Blackhawks make it to the Stanley Cup finals for the sole reason that it would be yet another step away from what had become the Chicago sporting mentality of losing ball clubs.

Being in my 40s, it means I came of age in the 1970s. Some people want to think that polyester and disco makes that decade a shameful period (I say Boy George makes the 1980s even worse).

YET FOR ME, the thing about the ‘70s is that it was an era that established a mindset for many sports fans in this city (myself included). Back in that era, all the teams stunk. And that was just the way it was meant to be.

Chicago sports successes were supposed to be so far in the past that few contemporary people could remember them.

Heck, that includes that Blackhawks. Despite having some talented players when I was a kid (I remember Stan Mikita as something other than a stupid gag from that ridiculous Wayne’s World film), the Blackhawks hadn’t won a Stanley Cup championship since 1961 (they still haven’t).

The Chicago Bulls, despite players like Norm Van Lier and Bob Love, had NEVER won anything. And forget about the Bears, White Sox and Cubs. This was the era with players such as Bob Avellini, Bill Nahorodny and Dave Kingman.

IF ANYTHING, 1976 was the quintessential season. When other people were getting excited about the Bicentennial, we in Chicago were following dreadful teams, with the Blackhawks coming closest to having a good team (32-30 that season, with 18 ties).

The White Sox, Cubs and Bulls all had losing seasons (with the Bulls being the worst team in the National Basketball Association that year – 24-58). You figure if people should have got excited about the Bears’ 7-7 record that year.

These losing records came despite the fact that three Hall of Fame players in their respective sports were with Chicago teams that year – Rich Gossage of the White Sox, Bruce Sutter of the Cubs and Walter Payton of the Bears.

The lesson learned was that not even an occasional skilled athlete would make a difference – the concept of a championship sporting team being from Chicago was an oxymoron.

THIS WAS THE era where no so-called “major” sports team from Chicago won a championship – not between the Bears’ NFL title in 1963 to their Super Bowl victory in 1986. (The Chicago Sting won titles in 1981 and 1984, but some people like to discount those victories. Besides, they didn’t come in the 1970s).

It is the reason why I have the mentality that a sporting championship that brings attention to Chicago is something to be cherished. I’m not going to look down on the White Sox’ World Series title in 2005 just because it was not followed up with a repeat performance in 2006.

The Bears aren’t a failure because they didn’t follow up their Super Bowl appearance of a few years ago (although it is a bit of a blemish that they let themselves get beat by a team from a minor league town such as Indianapolis).

And the idea that the Bulls rose to a level of six championships in an eight-season period is something that ought to be celebrated. The Bulls of that era, with Michael Jordan and Scotty Pippen, give Chicago the closest it has ever come to experiencing what places like New York had back in the days of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig leading the Yankees in their glory days.

IT IS WHY I think too many of the nitwit kids (which is the way I think of anyone under 30) who call in to sports talk radio to rant and complain ought to get a clue. Things could be a lot worse than they are these days.

Heck, they used to be much worse. But that only means it would be all the more enjoyable if the Blackhawks are able to make it past the Detroit Red Wings to play in the Stanley Cup finals.

It would eliminate “1961” from the list of “Chicago lasts,” just like the White Sox title of four years ago took “1959” off the list.

I’d love to have things turn out so that one day, it will be thought of as quaint that Chicago teams were expected to stink (and perhaps people will think I’m just addle-brained and senile for thinking that a ballplayer named “Larry Biittner” ever really mangled the outfield as badly as he did).

IN FACT, I can think of only one reason why I would prefer NOT to have the Blackhawks prevail over the Red Wings – and it relates to those sports-related bets that Mayor Richard M. Daley is so fond of making with government officials of other cities.

Our mayor of two decades has offered up the usual assortment of foodstuffs manufactured by Chicago-area companies, including a few of those gourmet-type pizzas from Lou Malnati’s.

Yet if I comprehend the bet properly, Detroit’s payoff should the Blackhawks prevail will include pizza from Little Caesar’s. Ugh! Am I the only person who thinks the Second City is getting the worst end of this deal?

Not having to envision the thought of anyone at City Hall having to eat one of those cardboard-type pizza pies would make it worth having to go yet another year in Chicago without a Stanley Cup at the building across the street from the lamented Chicago Stadium.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: I always thought the one redeeming feature of the Chicago Blackhawks, no matter how bad the franchise sank in recent years, was their theme song (http://www.imeem.com/ilovehockey/music/lEaQ4MN_/chicago-blackhawks-here-come-the-hawks/), which I think is the catchiest of any Chicago sports franchise (and I don’t want to hear from Chicago Bears fans on this point).

Oh well, the Blackhawks merely have to win four of the next six games in order to (http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/hockey/blackhawks/chi-18-blackhawks-red-wings-may18,0,3412719.story) keep this season going.