2010 Stanley Cup Playoffs: Welcome To the Chicago Blackhawks Bandwagon!

I can't help but sit back and laugh as I survey the blogosphere in the last four days.

The entire regular season, Chicago Blackhawks fans and regular writers everywhere have been told to temper their excitement and expectations because they "didn't have the experience" or because "their goaltending wasn't good enough" to make a serious run at the Stanley Cup.

For the past two years, the youngest team in the league and their fans have been treated like little brothers.

Certainly the depths to which the Blackhawks organization sunk under "Dollar Bill" Wirtz merited the rest of the hockey world writing off the franchise from the late '90s until the later parts of this decade; everything that could have been done wrong was done twice, and then perfected.

No home games on television, annual ticket price increased and talent decreased, and superstar departures every time the organization failed by developing a legitimate player made the cynical Chicago fans turn and walk away.

And, if the city the team is in doesn't care about it, why should the league? Or the media that covers the league?

Then the old man died, and his son Rocky took over. He hired the greatest marketing mind in professional sports, John McDonough, away from the Chicago Cubs and instantly started turning the franchise around. In less than one season, the Blackhawks organization had fixed almost all of the wrongs they had perpetrated on their fans over the past decades.

After barely missing the playoffs in 2008, McDonough started the stairway back to respect by selling the league on the potential and profitability of the Blackhawks. Somehow Gary Bettman made a good decision and awarded Chicago the Winter Classic, where the Hawks hosted the Detroit Red Wings on New Year's Day at Wrigley Field.

The event was a smashing success. I was at the game. It was cold. I drank a lot. It was incredible.

At the end of the season, the Blackhawks made the playoffs for the first time in seven years and the league looked at the team with the 21-year-old captain and told them to just be happy to be part of the dance and chalk it up as a learning experience.

Then they knocked off the veteran Calgary Flames.

And then they knocked off the veteran Vancouver Canucks.

The youngest team in the NHL made it all the way to the Western Conference Finals with over 60 percent of the team's cumulative playoff experience between the pipes.

Over the following summer, the Hawks made a bold statement. Despite staring into the face of some enormous salary cap issues, they signed the top free agent on the market, Marian Hossa, to a long-term deal. The Blackhawks also added Stanley Cup champions Tomas Kopecky and John Madden to the mix.

Still, everyone around the league scoffed at the Blackhawks and their fans.

"You overpaid a loser," people said. "Madden's washed up and Hossa can't win."

Oh, and my personal favorite, "Your goaltending will kill you."

Well, here we are. Three games into the Western Conference Finals, with a 3-0 lead on the veteran San Jose Sharks, the Blackhawks are now everyone's favorite topic to write about.

"The Blackhawks have the weapons to win the Cup."

"The Blackhawks are a great team."

Oh, and my personal favorite, "Antti Niemi is legit."

I invite everyone to go back to the beginning of the playoffs and look at some of the articles and slideshows that were written heading into the playoffs. Almost across the board, Niemi was ranked somewhere between 12-16 among the goalies entering the playoffs.

Niemi has now allowed five goals against 118 shots in the Conference Finals, good for an incredible .958 save percentage. Questions, anyone?

In February, when he was named the Most Outstanding Forward of the Olympics, I wrote a piece saying that Jonathan Toews should be one of the new faces of the NHL , pointing out that while Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin are remarkable talents, Toews was certainly ready to be considered in the same class as those superstars.

I was blasted for have the intestinal fortitude to say Toews was elite.

Before the playoffs started, I made 25 bold predictions. At the end, I projected that Toews would win the Conn Smythe and that the Blackhawks would win the Cup.

I was blasted for being a homer, and was told that Toews didn't score enough to win the postseason Most Valuable Player award.

Toews now has 25 points in 15 playoff games, and broke Hall of Famer Stan Mikita 's Blackhawks record by scoring a point in his 12th straight playoff game last night. He leads the NHL in postseason scoring by a wide margin (six points), and is widely regarded as the frontrunner for the Conn Smythe.

In fact, now that the Blackhawks are "worth caring about," writers from every city are starting to perk up to the idea that Toews is legit. Jon Neely, who covers the Toronto Maple Leafs, jumped on the bandwagon today, writing that Toews has launched himself to superstardom this year .

It's a great, well- written article; I highly recommend reading it.

But that's the theme for Chicago fans right now: the bandwagon.

The fans that have been told that "your players are nice, but not GREAT" and that "someday, maybe you'll win it all" are not watching and listening to media all over North America jump all over the youngest team in the league and herald them the risen king.

No, the Blackhawks aren't in the Stanley Cup Finals yet. Hawks fans are very mindful of the Boston Bruins epic failure of this very postseason, and with the 2003 Cubs too fresh in our minds we know better than to take even the most dominant on-paper performances for granted.

But now that the Hawks are the "it team" in the NHL, it's fun to watch the rest of the free world jump on board the Blackhawks Bandwagon.

Welcome aboard!

For more great consistent, year-round, non-bandwagon coverage of the Chicago Blackhawks, check out Tab's blog: CommittedIndians.com!