11 Comments

This was great! You have a wonderfully unique way of writing. Great turns of phrase. As a former classicist, I was delighted by your use of genius loci.

I grew up outside Chicago watching the Blackhawks. Not home games on TV of course, the owners had a TV blackout for home games so people would go to the games. It didn't work because back then, in the 90s, they lost a lot. Still, I had a poster of the '96 Blackhawks on my wall growing up. Chris Chelios, Tony Amonte, Ed Belfour in goal. I wasn't obsessed but my dad is Canadian and loves hockey so I did too. One game we went to they were giving away free hats and when Tony Amonte scored a hat-trick everyone threw their hat onto the ice. My brother and I kept ours though I'm pretty sure it's too small for me now.

As a Blackhawks fan I also had the unimaginable luck to get to see them win the Stanley Cup three times. I was even at game 6 in 2015 when we won the cup at home in Chicago.

Duncan Keith was one of my favorites. Defensemen are so important and since they're not usually huge goal scorers they tend not to get a ton of credit or press.

I haven't watched hockey in years. I don't get cable anymore and my free time is sparse. Following hockey was never an obsession for me and other things took precedence. But it was with a pang of nostalgia and loss that I saw a few weeks ago that the Blackhawks had released Jonathan Toews, the captain since 2008 and last player on the team from the days of winning the cup in '10, '13, and '15. Maybe I'm a bad fan but I don't recognize any of the other names on the team and it feels like 'my' team is gone. More accurately, I suppose I'm the one that left them.

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I will! 😁

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I grew up in San Jose surrounded by Sharks fans, but I was a figure skater and we were bound by some unspoken moral code to hate the hockey players (the Junior Sharks) at our rink. Or maybe that was just me. Either way, this piece has convinced me that I have been missing out on an amazing shared experience by not watching hockey.

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I loved this. Unfortunately, as a long suffering Vancouver fan, I HATE the Bruins. When I was a kid though, I was a Blackhawks fan. I grew up just as the first expansion teams came into the league. I was around in the days of the Original Six. I hated Montreal. They were like the Yankees. Detroit never made the play-offs; the Rangers always choked, but the Hawks had Bobby Hull, and his little brother; Stan Makita...and Tony "0", (called that because he had 15 shut-outs in his rookie season.)

I hoped you watched the game last night. And you're so right. There's nothing like Play-off hockey. I put the game on at 5 o'clock. I don't care for either team, although I tend to like Florida just because they had Luongo and then traded him here where he was stellar. But I watched that game and loved it. I love overtime because they have no commercials. Four extra periods, and then just as the fourth one was winding down, with 12 seconds left...done. It was 11:00 o'clock out here on the coast. And tonight, another game. Can't wait.

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founding

"sniffing the spilled oil of a rough boy in need of a soft touch." among others, Good God Girl this is Great! I am now going to actually watch a hockey game. I had no idea.

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I shall be reading aloud your post to my husband, because most of sports writing is lost on me. ❤️

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