Blackhawks-Red Wings: A Winter Classic That Matters?

Very few times in recent American sports history have over-hyped, media-created, made-for-television dramas inside the unpredictable world of athletics lived up to the crush of pressure created by the events, issues, and people surrounding the child of marketing labor pains.

Tiger Woods has done it. So did the 2007-08 Boston Celtics. LeBron James has, too. But those are the three best, and perhaps only, examples of "the Chosen" that have backed up the hype in the past 15 years. Just look at the 2008 Dallas Cowboys and Chicago Cubs, or the Phoenix Suns of the past decade.

Hype can be overwhelming. Planning on something being meaningful is even harder to do.

But for once in his tenure as the managing director of the National Hockey League, Gery Bettman got something right. The 2009 Winter Classic should not only be a good game between two hated rivals at one of sport's hallowed venues, but it will actually matter.

Over the past month, the Chicago Blackhawks have become everything the Chicago sports gods had been praying would arrive.

The Bears had the playoffs handed to them, and fumbled it away. The Cubs and White Sox, both in the same post-season for the first time since the czars were in power, each found a unique way to fail. And the young Bulls, with all their talent and lottery picks, continue to look like puberty is miles away.

The Blackhawks, meanwhile, have become one of the great stories in all of sports in 2008. While franchises like the Detroit Lions set records for being awful, everyone forgets that it was just 17 months ago that the 'Hawks were rated, almost unanimously, as the worst franchise in professional sports by every media outlet and publication.

But when former owner Bill Wirtz passed away, he left his son Rocky in charge. And things changed.

Some onlookers would assume, as we are regularly sold in American sports culture, that change takes a few years. Rebuilding projects take time. Making things right might take a decade.

It took Rocky Wirtz less than two months to fix the most glaring oversight in the Hawks history—locally televised games. The addition of marketing jedi John MacDonough from the Cubs was also a stroke of genius. From there, Wirtz began aggressively pursuing better talent on the ice and weeding out under performing players.

Fast forward to a few days after Christmas a little over a year later. The Hawks, the youngest team in the NHL, are within smelling distance of the Red Wings for first place in the division and are currently third in points in the Western Conference.

The "rebuilding project" to competitive, championship-level hockey that Rocky Wirtz outlined in his initial press conference last September has taken less than two full seasons to make the Blackhawks the buzz team in all of hockey.

Chicago is glowing in red and black as the public relations euphoria of hockey at Wrigley Field draws near. And, against the odds, the young Hawks have made this event something that will not only be something special for the fans that watch and attend the game, but it will also be a significant piece to potential post season plans.

Tonight, December 30, is the second of five games between the Hawks and Red Wings. Earlier this fall the Red Wings beat the Hawks in a shootout at the United Center before what was then a United Center record crowd. This evening the two teams meet in Detroit for the first time this year, with the Hawks riding a franchise-record nine-game winning streak into the Motor City.

The Winter Classic becomes especially important because it gives the Blackhawks a fifth game against a team they would appear to be battling for first place in the division, with the odd game giving the Hawks a three-to-two home advantage this season.

If the Hawks can capitalize on their recent streak of road success and steal one from the Red Wings tonight to square the season series, the game at Wrigley could determine a lot in the Western Conference playoff picture.

Who would have thought at this time last year that a hockey game on the first of January would matter in Chicago?