Chicago Blackhawks: The Winter Classic Is Just the Beginning

Well, hockey fans, the Winter Classic is finally upon us.

Tomorrow afternoon, the Red Wings and Blackhawks will square off at Wrigley Field in Chicago, and the eyes of the hockey world will be on the defending Stanley Cup Champs, squaring off against a team enjoying a resurgence that has taken the league by pleasant surprise.

The Blackhawks have been rewarded for their re-emergence on the national scene with this Winter Classic game, an opportunity not only to showcase one of America’s most famous sporting venues in a way it has never been seen before, but also to focus the light of the nation on a city that is finally embracing its hockey roots once again.

Fans of the team have been welcomed back with a wonderful amount of vigor and pomp by the franchise, and the product on the ice has revealed not only a commitment to good marketing, but also to winning a championship, the measuring stick for any team in any sport.

The 'Hawks’ re-found importance to the city was not come upon easily. The road was difficult, and some out of the box thinking, as well as a lot of common sense, has given the team what is has: one of the league’s best records, one of its best tandems (Toews and Kane), and a full arena every single night.

Think of where this team was about a year-and-a-half ago. The old guard of Bill Wirtz was still in place. Ticket sales, TV ratings, and interest in the franchise were at all-time lows. Players like Kyle Calder, Tuomo, Ruutu, and Mark Bell had no discernible impact on the exposure or name recognition for the team, and the future looked bleak as a general rule.

Personnel issues and financial concerns were not the only things that were hindering the Hawks. The team had no traction in a city featuring a Super Bowl runner-up (the Bears), a recent World Series Champion (the White Sox), and a co-tenant of the United Center who had a string of playoff appearances and looked poised to make the big leap from hot young team to elite of the league (the Bulls).

The picture on the relevancy front was even bleaker when compared to teams outside of the “Big Four” sports. The Arena Bowl Champion Chicago Rush were hugely popular among fans, and even the AHL’s Chicago Wolves were thought of in most sporting circles as the “real Chicago hockey team,” and even threw occasional barbs about the fact that “we’ve actually won championships recently.”

As if all of these factors weren’t enough to signify problems with the state of the team, you also had the treatment of Blackhawks legends like Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita.

Over the years, Wirtz had chased off Hull and other alumni of the team, a foolish move that caused a lot of friction between men who had been the face of the last Cup-winning team to reside on the West Side of the city.

The resentment was deep-seeded among those men, especially Hull, and it appeared unlikely that the damage would ever be fixed.

Even announcer Pat Foley was not exempt from the tyranny of the Bill Wirtz era, and he left for the greener pastures of the Wolves’ broadcast booth.

With all of these problems, the team was certainly in dire straights. After a lockout, and years of foolish ownership decisions, the team seemed doomed to mediocrity forever. Beginning with the 2006 NHL Entry Draft, however, there was a faint flicker of light at the end of the tunnel, and for one of the few times in the history of Chicago sports, it wasn’t a freight train preparing to flatten the hapless squad.

The perfect storm began to form the day the 'Hawks drafted a young Canadian center named Jonathan Toews. He possessed prodigious talent, a keen eye for the goal, and, most importantly, a propensity for leadership. While no one knew it at the time, he would play a vital role in the hockey renaissance in Chicago.

The growing storm gained even more momentum a year later when the Blackhawks got the first overall pick in the draft, and picked an 18-year-old kid from Buffalo, NY who looked like he should be a DDR champion but had the moves on the ice of a polished veteran.

Patrick Kane came out of the draft with huge expectations, and he began his rookie season on the ice constantly with the big club, a rare thing for a player of his age. He led his team in scoring, and won the Calder Trophy for the league’s top rookie, beating out Toews in the process.

The drafting of Toews and Kane could have easily been for naught, however, if not for a stroke of fate that caused pain in the Wirtz family and some macabre celebrations to break out all over Chicago.

The death of William Wirtz was greeted with a weird mix of sadness and excitement. He had owned the Blackhawks for 41 years, had seen them move into a new arena, and had seen players like Chelios and Magnuson don the red Indian-head sweater, but in the end, Wirtz will be known forever as the man who wouldn’t televise home games and who chased away the legends of the franchise.

After his death, his son Rocky took over the franchise, and he immediately began to make moves to bolster the team. Building around Toews and Kane, Wirtz took off running with ideas like Usain Bolt does with a baton. He immediately broached the idea of putting the team’s home games on television and Comcast SportsNet obliged.

Viewing the games as a three-hour advertisement for the United Center experience, Wirtz and CSN made the viewer feel as though they were actually in the arena, bringing everything from the National Anthem to the end of game salute at center ice to the viewers.

The results became immediately obvious, and the stadium began to fill with long lost fans of the club.

Another big move in the early days of the Rocky Regime was the hiring of John McDonough, former president of the Chicago Cubs. He spent 24 years with that franchise, filling their stadium and marketing the team so well that they are widely considered one of the most popular franchises in the nation.

He was sought out to bring his marketing genius, as well as his passion for the team, to help attract fans and free agents to the Windy City.

McDonough is responsible for a lot of the changes that have occurred with the team, his most notable accomplishment being the first ever Blackhawks Convention last July, the first such fan convention in the history of the NHL. It was a rousing success, selling out in a matter of days and generating a wave of excitement that has carried on to this season.

As important as the Hawks Convention was, it was not nearly as important to McDonough and Rocky as bringing back those who meant the most: the legends of the franchise. Through a series of face-to-face meetings and phone calls, players like Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita, Tony Esposito, and Glenn Hall were brought back into the family, named team ambassadors, and dispatched to generate excitement and capitalize on the nostalgia that is inherent in every Original Six franchise.

With these new ambassadors and newly energized fan base in tow, the ownership of the team, spearheaded by John McDonough, leaned heavily on the NHL to allow the team to host the Winter Classic at Wrigley Field in Chicago. After seeing the success of the game at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo a year ago, they thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to showcase their new team, as well as the enthusiasm of the fan base.

Now, as we sit here today, on the cusp of yet another defining moment in the illustrious history of this franchise, it is fascinating to sit back and reflect on what has transpired over the last year and a half. A team left for dead by many hockey experts, the Blackhawks have beaten the odds and become the most relevant team in their city. It has truly been a remarkable turnaround.

We may be tempted to look at this Winter Classic as a final affirmation that the team is back, but it really isn’t that at all. Instead, it is merely the end of one chapter in the resurrection of the team. As John

McDonough has said repeatedly: “This isn’t about marketing. This is about winning.” While buzz may generate ticket sales for the short term, winning a Stanley Cup would cement this team’s place in the pantheon of Chicago sports, and that, is the ultimate goal.

So, as you are watching the Winter Classic tomorrow, just make sure to take the time to savor the event, and just remember that the Chicago Blackhawks have come a long way to be there, in this time and place, and that this is just the beginning.