| Out of Labor and Onto the Good Stuff |
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| Written by Chris Block | |||
| Monday, 07 September 2009 20:36 | |||
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For hockey fans, Labor Day is typically the turning point from summer into the anticipation of the impending hockey season. It seems like it all just ended and here it is upon us once again. And that's a good thing. The greatest sport in the world, some of us would say, and you can never get too much of that. At least I can't. -- I contributed a quick synopsis on the 2009-10 Chicago Blackhawks for Greg Wyshinski's Blackhawks' preview Monday at Yahoo!'s Puck Daddy blog. You can see it here. -- Wanted to thank all those who sent in notes after seeing this week's Hockey News (currently on newsstands with John Tavares on cover). I preferred 'dawdling' to 'dwindling' when referring to Cristobal Huet's reflexes, but I can be accused of getting a bit too wordy at times. -- We're back on the air tonight at 8pm over at BlogTalkRadio.com/TheThirdManIn for another edition of The Third Man In ~ Radio. You can stream with us live and we'll be taking your calls over the course of the hour-plus. Remember, 'Email from a dope' on tonight's show, as well as some great ones from some of our intelligent listeners, which is the vast majority. However, the occasional 'dope' manages to slip one in there every now and then. Lots of Blackhawks discussion on tonight's show for those of you into that kind of thing. On next week's show Sam Fels, editor of The Committed Indian and one of our friends and writers over at SecondCityHockey.com. -- To the unaware, NHL Network is re-airing the 2009 Western Conference Finals series, Detroit Red Wings vs. Chicago Blackhawks, Monday through Friday this week withfirst-run showings at 6pm central, then again at 9pm and midnight. The games air in two hour, truncated form with intermissions omitted. -- The only ComcastSportsNet-Chicago pre season broadcast will be of the first exhibition game, Saturday September 19th when the Washington Capitals visit the United Center at 7:30pm. That game will replay on the 21st at 1pm for anyone stuck on a couch or bar stool at that time of the the day on a Monday. Which according to Yahoo! is eleven percent of you. -- Comcast locally will be replaying the following '09 Blackhawks playoff games on successive Sunday evenings this month: Sept 13 - Gm 6 - Hawks at Calgary (4/27/09) - 7:30pm -- Speaking of Comcast, they apparently blocked their reporter Josh Mora from doing a Q&A with the SecondCityHockey.com readers late last week. We live in a strange world. -- Rockford IceHogs single-game tickets go on sale this Wednesday, 10am at MetroCentre.com. I joke about Rockford here from time to time but the MetroCentre isn't a bad place to watch a game as I've done numerous times now over the past two seasons. If you're heading out from Chicago on a weekday late afternoon however, leave yourself two hours before whenever you'd like to be in your seat. -- Sunday was the 18th anniversary of the trade that ended Doug Wilson's Blackhawks career. Should've never postponed that off season surgery to play golf for two months. Blackhawks sent Wilson to the Sharks as San Jose prepared for its inagural NHL season in exchange for no-talented tough guy Kerry Toporowski and the Sharks' second-round pick in the 1992 NHL draft. Ironically, that pick turned into future Blackhawk defenseman Boris Mironov, but it was Winnipeg who drafted him as the Hawks would trade that pick to the Jets. (Mironov, unfortunately, became a Blackhawk in 1999) Here's how that went down. At the draft table on June 20, 1992, head coach/general manager Mike Keenan swapped his '92 first and second round picks (#17 and #27) with Winnipeg for the Jets' first and second, picks #12 and #36. Keenan used the Jets' original selections to make Sergei Krivokrasov and Jeff Shantz (of the Regina Pats) Blackhawks. Winnipeg chose Sergei Bautin with the 17th and Mironov the 27th. Some felt Krivokrasov was an underachieving playmaking/scoring winger over the course of his six-year Chicago career but a more accurate portrayal was he was simply an overrated Russian who emerged at a time when virtually every team was looking to strike gold with the next Russian sensation. Shantz was seen as the eventual successor to Brent Sutter, and for a time he was on that track, but he never contributed offensively with any sort of consistency and was traded to Calgary early in the 98-99 season after six in an Indian head. If it is your want to over-analyze every Blackhawks draft (hey, what else are we supposed to do on Sept 8th?) in choosing Krivokrasov (I'd give anything to hear Harvey Wittenberg attempt to announce that name over the p.a. one more time) and Shantz with the 12 and 36 picks, Mike Keenan passed over defenseman Sergei Gonchar (14th to Washington) and center Michael Peca (40th to Vancouver). Yeah, the Hawks might have been a little better in the late 90's had they drafted those two instead. -- Haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else but Sunday was also the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Blackhawks choosing not to invite Tony Esposito to their 1984 training camp and Esposito subsequently retired. Murray Bannerman had already succeeded Esposito as the number one goalie playing 56 games in '83-84 to Esposito's 18 (4.82 gaa, 5-10-3 W-L-T record). Warren Skorodenski (5'8 - 165lbs) became the back up at that point and appeared in 27 games, posting a 3.22 goals against average in '84-85. Esposito would quickly join the Pittsburgh organization under Eddie Johnston as director of hockey operations and eventually replaced Johnston as GM for roughly a season and a half (88- Dec 89) when Craig Patrick took over. A job Patrick held, amazingly for 17 years. While Penguins' GM, Esposito was elected and joined the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1988 and had his number 35 retired and raised to the Chicago Stadium rafters in a joint ceremony alongside Glenn Hall on November 20, 1988. That night the Hawks played Vancouver and lost 7-4. -- Dale Tallon left the radio/television broadcast booth to become Hawks' Director of Player Personnel eleven years ago yesterday, September 7, 1998. Dale briefly returned to the booth alongside Pat Foley for the 2002-03 season and two months of the following season after a dispute with then general manager Mike Smith. When Smith was axed, Tallon immediately left the broadcast team (sucks to be Billy Gardner) and returned to hockey operations where he was being groomed to be the next GM while Bob Pulford finished pruning the team in preparations for the 2004 summer labor negotiations and new collective bargaining agreement Bill Wirtz was convinced (or assured - take your pick) would include a salary cap. Wirtz was correct, even though it robbed fans of an entire season of NHL hockey, and Tallon was named the 8th General Manager in the organization's history on June 21, 2005, thirty-one days before the lockout officially ended. -- On this day in 1986, the Blackhawks sent Ken Yaremchuk, Jerome Dupont and a 4th round pick in the 1987 draft (Leafs used to take Massachusetts HS winger Joe Sacco) to Toronto as compensation for signing defenseman Gary Nylund in free agency a few weeks prior. Some details on this Saturday's second-annual Blackhawks Training Camp Festival. Is the NHL still a Beer League? Doug Fischer, Ottawa Citizen - The tragic 10 - Derek Sanderson is one of the game's greatest characters but can you imagine someone like him in the NHL nowadays? Totally different era. Nowadays hockey fans tend to eat their own and anyone who betrays the standard, simple Canadian farm boy image. See Ray Emery in 2008 and Sean Avery every day. Makes one wonder how Patrick Kane can plead guilty to assaulting (defined as disorderly conduct in Buffalo) a 62 year old man and fans, at least locally, are bending over backwards to make excuses for the boyishly handsome ice hockey phenom. It'll be interesting to see how long that holds up both here and nationally. Anyhow, these two links are required reading. And Patrick Kane, and I'm positive I'm not the only person drilling this into his head these days, must alter his around-the-town extra ciriculars right away. Kane's lifestyle rumored to change drastically since moving out of Stan Bowman's northwest side basement and into a Trump Tower abode after his rookie campaign. Now that he's put himself under the microscope after his unfortunate night out-on-the-town in his hometown on August 8th, everyone will be keeping an eye out for him and his behavior, and that behavior, whether fair or not, will get out in some form somewhere. Not here, but in some places for sure. ** A word on our upcoming TTMI Fantasy Hockey League. Anyone interested in joining our league, you'll need to send me an email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it so I can forward you the invitation link. We have some spots left and if the demand is there, I'd be willing to post a second league and play in that one as well. And don't forget about our draft get together on Saturday night, September 26th at All-Stars Bar & Grill in Chicago. Even if you're not participating in our fantasy league, you're welcome to come down and have some beverages if you wish. Notre Dame is playing Purdue that night so that'll be on the teley. Our draft gets underway at 7:30 (for both those who'll be doing it live on location or wherever you are scattered across the country, 7:30 central though) but we'll be at All-Stars from 6-9:30 most likely. And who knows after that~? ** I'm looking to hear from anyone, as well as those who've shown interest in the past, who'd be willing to become contributors here on our site. It appears, at least as of this writing, I should be able to resume regular posting here on my end from this point forward and the newsletter should finally be up and running and out to you regularly at some point this week. So, if I'm concentrating on news updates and the occasional rants and historical pieces, I'd be interested in involving anyone who'd like to contribute game stories and opinion pieces. I can already see the demand for the radio show will expand that schedule from one to two or three shows per week, not to mention breaking news audio reaction in the event of major stories or happenings. The reality is I simply can't handle this entire load, keep a job and have somewhat of a social life concurrently without the site nearing dormancy at times. Which is why I'm asking for interested parties to contact me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to further discuss a potential involvement. As I detailed on the show a couple of weeks ago, the only other option would be to merge with another blog, and at some point that may be the best thing for both or more parties (as well as 'blog' readers) considering the anticipated surge of new Blackhawks blogs over the course of the next few months. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites      
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