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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Sports fans say they want escape from life's tensions, but mostly only want their own attitudes reinforced

I found myself enjoying some baseball this weekend, in the form of the college baseball tourney recently renamed for one-time Chicago Cubs star Andre Dawson.

The new namesake of HBCU tourney

That tournament played this weekend in the much milder weather of New Orleans gave the University of Illinois at Chicago Flames a chance to start out their season away from the Saturday afternoon snowfall we had in Chicago. But the rest of the schools participating were southern in nature, and most were the HBCUs of the country.

THAT’S AS IN Historically Black Colleges and Universities – the schools that date back to when black people were excluded from traditional higher education, so a class of colleges sprung up to create opportunities.

Those colleges aren’t exclusively black enrollment anymore, but there are some people who feel more comfortable trying to get a higher education in an environment where they’re not the minority. This weekend, places like Alabama State, Alcorn State, Grambling, Southern, Prairie View A&M and Arkansas-Pine Bluff got to show their stuff on the baseball diamond.

I’m sure there are going to be some people who will be offended that such a tournament is taking place. The Major League Baseball website is filled with nameless comments calling the tourney "a joke" and emphasizing they'd never heard of it before. But then again, they’re the ones whose idea of integration is that everybody act as though they were white.

They are the first to scream “racist!” (or their favorite taunt, “reverse racism!”) whenever something comes along that forces them to admit racial bias still exists. They don’t want to be called out on their own Archie Bunker-like tendencies.

Helping to advise new HBCU tourney

IT WAS NICE to see that Major League Baseball is giving this particular tournament some support and publicity. What with Dawson (who played college ball at the historically-black Florida A&M University) giving his name, and one-time Chicago White Sox manager Jerry Manuel serving as a consultant.

For what it was worth, it was nice to be able to ignore the Saturday snowfall that reminded us winter ain’t through by any means to see baseball being played – with the Flames overcoming a 4-3 deficit in the 9^th inning to ultimately win the ballgame 9-5.

Which makes me feel sorry for those people who are going to want to think I wasted my Saturday afternoon away by watching some lower class of baseball. One they probably think is not worthy of any public attention.

Wrong sport? Or knucklehDeaded fans?

Probably the same kind of people who get upset whenever anybody points out the declining number of black ballplayers currently on Major League rosters. They’ll argue black people just don’t play baseball that much, and we shouldn’t think it an issue.

LIKELY, THEY BELIEVE the lasting lesson of 2014 and the Little League World Series that the Jackie Robinson West team from Chicago is that a majority-black ball club can only win if it cheats.

Yet this kind of attitude isn’t limited to baseball and springtime. Take hockey, where also on Saturday several Chicago Blackhawks fans were ejected from the United Center for their racially-tainted taunts of visiting team players.

Specifically, of Devante Smith-Pelly, a forward for the Washington Capitals who is one of the few black players in the National Hockey League.

When he was sent to the penalty box during the game, Blackhawks fans taunted him with a reminder that they thought he was playing the wrong sport.

FOUR FANS WERE kicked out of the stadium and the Blackhawks issued an apology, yet the Internet is filled with rants (anonymous, of course) contending that people were too sensitive about the slur (which was “basketball, basketball, basketball).

Black Lives matter activists “can call for the deaths and killings of police officers and that’s considered free speech?... Enough of this out-of-control absurd political correctness,” one Chicago Tribune commenter wrote.

Now playing for Toronto, Granderson was on hand to root for alma mater Flames

Of course, the very phrase “political correctness” has become a way of judging one’s racial attitudes – the ones who toss it out usually are upset that they’re being called out for their own bouts of verbal nastiness. As though their free speech right entitles them to the last word on EVERYTHING!

The sad part is that it means we can’t get away from this racial nonsense even at the ballpark or the stadium. Even though the ironic part is that many sports fans claim they follow ballgames as a form of escape – what they really seem to want is to have their own close-minded thoughts reaffirmed.

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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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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!

  -30-

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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EXTRA: From 3-1 to 3-3; What a difference three days can make!

Wednesday night, the Chicago Blackhawks had just a few minutes left of play and were down to the Los Angeles Kings – who may be a completely-competent hockey team.

It looked like the end was near. The shame of it all to have the mighty Blackhawks of the 2010s have their dreams of being remembered as one of the elite hockey teams of all time get squashed by such a sissy city – one where hockey isn’t even part of the social equation.

BUT WE ALL (or those of us who care) know that the Blackhawks managed to tie up that game, then win in double-overtime. The Blackhawks then came back Friday night to again beat the Kings.

4-3, with the winning goal coming with about three minutes left in the final period.

The final game of this round of the playoffs will be Sunday at the United Center. Any advantage the Kings had with a 3-1 edge is gone. The two teams are tied. Sunday is a winner-take-all situation.

If anything, this is one of those moments where I wish we could have the stadia of old. Just think how raucous the scene would be at the old Chicago Stadium. The echoing of the capacity crowd and that old pipe organ built right into the structure would have created a truly intimidating production.

ONE THAT I just don’t see being fully created at the United Center, which in some ways feels more like it belongs in a floofy city such as L.A.

Now I’m not the biggest of hockey fans. I’m sure anyone who really comprehends the game would quickly come up with enough trivia questions to expose my ignorance.

But I can appreciate how special it would be for the city’s pop culture image if the Blackhawks were to win their third Stanley Cup championship of this decade. And for that of the Blackhawks, who despite being an 88-year-old franchise and a part of the “Original Six” of the National Hockey League had only three league championships (1934, 1938 and 1961) during the rest of their history.

It is something to be enjoyed. Because this may well be the highlight of the Blackhawks franchise during our lifetimes.

The old building will be missed Sunday

AND IF IT turns out that we get a Stanley Cup finals this year of the New York Rangers (who have already qualified) up against the Blackhawks, it will be a good ol’ fashioned Chicago/New York brawl.

Do you really think New York/Los Angeles would be any more intriguing? Except that it would show us the degree to which the sporting fans of that California city are more interested in the Laker Girls than anything else!

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Cut your grass, you slob!!!

As a reporter-type person, I have sat through many municipal-type hearings where our local government officials go into great detail about how well their residents keep up with maintaining their lawns.

What does this ...

Believe it or not, it is a municipal violation that can result in significant fines if you let your grass grow to ridiculous heights.

THERE ARE LEGITIMATE reasons for not letting your lawn return to anything resembling its natural state (ie., prairie grass). Mosquitoes and the West Nile virus can breed in grass that gets too tall.

Although the issue usually gets bogged down amongst concerns from some people who have way too much free time on their hands. They’re the ones who want everybody else around them to match up to their own prissy standards of what is proper.

Which is why a legitimate concern over grass height often gets camouflaged in hysteria – people think there’s some sort of freedom of express in letting their grass become unkempt.

I bring all this up because of the latest quirky story to gain national attention – that of a man who lives in suburban Park Ridge who let his grass grow as high as 20 inches.

HE JUSTIFIED IT by saying that he’s a Chicago Blackhawks fan, and he was going to let his grass grow until the Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup (which could be sometime next week, if they play well against the Boston Bruins).

Naturally, there are those who see such talk as being silly. They called the village, which sent out an inspector who issued him a warning. The Chicago Tribune reported that the man (whom I don’t feel the need to give any more publicity than necessary) initially thought the warning was just a water bill.

The end result is that the village had a landscaping company they use for such work come in and mow his lawn – which is creating a mixture of reactions.

... have to do with this?

Tyranny at work. Evil, corrupt government telling a man what to do with his own property, then personally taking control of the situation when he refuses to comply with their petty demands!!!!

THAT’S A LITTLE over the top, but it is the way some people perceive this issue. Although there also are those who think they’re being cute. I read one nonsensical piece of commentary that claims all people should stop mowing their own lawns, since the local governments are now so willing to do it for you after awhile.

Personally, I wouldn’t buy into that logic – mainly because some governments hire private landscaping companies to perform such grass-cutting services. While some send out a crew of workers with the Public Works Department to do the job.

Either way, you’re talking about having to pay a professional rate to compensate those employees for the time they spent cutting your sloppy, ill-kempt grass. It’s not like conning a neighborhood kid with a $10 bill to do the lawn for you.

And for repeat offenders, there always are the possibility of tickets issued by the police – in addition to the cost of the grass-cutting itself.

THEN, THOSE PEOPLE could complain about government run amok – charging you all these dollars to support government programs and services that they will claim they never use.

Although the next time you flush your toilet, keep in mind that it is a government entity that is maintaining the system that ensures your waste does not get mixed with the drinking water supply. And also pays for those police who keep watch over your neighborhood.

Which is to say that I can’t help but think it a bit silly for someone to think they’re making any kind of statement about hockey by letting their summertime grass grow to ridiculous heights.

If he really wanted to make a statement, he’d somehow turn his lawn into an ice rink. He could skate around with joy (and perhaps land flat on his bottom) when, and if, the Blackhawks actually manage to win.

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