Just pulled the trigger on a pair of tickets for the Red Wings-Blackhawks game in Chicago on Oct. 9.
Home opener.
Cup banner raising.
Ring presentation.
5,674 people packed into WestEnd for pre-game revelry.
It’s gonna be wild.
It also means that I will have been present for the two most crucial events of the Blackhawks’ Stanley Cup run. There certainly have been many key moments — the victory over San Jose to send Chicago to the Finals for the first time since 1992, Patrick Kane’s anti-climactic overtime clincher in Philadelphia, the parade down Michigan Avenue in front of 3 million people — but the following two events, to me, are most significant — and not just because I was (or will be) there:
April 24, 2010: Come-from-behind OT victory against Nashville in Game 5, Western Quarterfinals
You remember this game.
Hawks lead 3-1 in the second period and are absolutely plowing the Predators around the rink. Shots are 24-8, Chicago, but Nashville gets a shorthanded goal late in the period, then scores twice in the third to take a 4-3 lead. Everyone’s Saturday afternoon beer buzz switches from celebratory to self-medicating. Worse, Marian Hossa takes a five-minute boarding penalty late in regulation, which pretty much cements the fact that this will be the team’s biggest dud of the season.
Unthinkable: the looming loss gives the Predators a 3-2 series lead heading back to Nashville.
Then, of course, out of nowhere, Kane shovels a backhander into the net with 15 seconds left in regulation. Chaos. The Hawks kill the remaining 3:57 of Hossa’s penalty to start overtime, then the big dog exits the penalty box and skates, untouched, directly to the Nashville net and pops in a deflected shot from the point (above).
Hawks win, 4-3.
Bedlam.
If they lose that game, they probably lose the series. Bye-bye, Cup. Instead, the victory not only proved what everyone already knew — this team, a show-up bunch of hot dogs who loved the spotlight, operated best on deadline — but it also scared them so straight that they stopped fucking around. They went on to steamroll Vancouver, San Jose and, finally, the Flyers.
But if they don’t come back to win that game against Nashville, none of the rest happens.
October, 9: 2010-11 Season Opener, Banner, Ring Presentation
“Nobody in Chicago really got closure with this thing,” my buddy, a longtime Hawks fan who will also attend the Oct. 9 game, said yesterday.
He’s right. The Hawks won the Cup out of town and, although the city has pretty much been a Cup-raising frat house all summer, there’s still going to be something about seeing that banner raised, remembering the key players who were subsequently traded, and realizing that the Cup is now over. This is a new season. New players. New challenges. And with Detroit in the building, a perfect opponent for a multitude of reasons, it will be one final Cup catharsis.
Bring it!
PS: My seats for the Nashville game were about 15 rows off the ice just inside the blue line at the end where Hossa scored the winner above. I’ve been to concerts, walked near jet engines, and accidentally jacked up iPod ear buds to “Bleed” level, but I’ve still never heard anything louder than when Hossa scored that goal. That game was the most dramatic sporting event I’ve ever attended.
