@#$%!*~+&!
Believe it or not, I attend church every Sunday. I don't kick stray
dogs, I eat my vegetables, and I occasionally donate to charitable
organizations.
So why in the name of all that is holy am I forced to watch Chicago
Blackhawks hockey?
Coach Dirk Graham called his players' effort November 10 against St.
Louis "a disgrace" to the Hawks uniform. It was the team's sixth
loss in seven games, and their coach had challenged them publicly, so
I was curious, almost eager, to see how the Hawks would respond two
nights later at home against the Leafs.
What the meager United Center crowd was treated to that night was a
game so gruesome, so terrifying that mere words cannot do it
justice.
Chicago goalies Jeff Hackett and Mark Fitzpatrick had apparently
shared a five-dollar rock before the pregame skate, because the 10
goals that the Leafs would score would come on only 30 shots, most
of them weak wristers from the blue line. The Probert-Domi fight
was a dud. The girl shooting the puck between periods was wearing
jeans. Jeans!!
The Blackhawks were so embarrassed with that performance that they
went up to Buffalo two nights later and stank up the Aud (oh sorry,
the Marine Midland Arena), losing 6-1.
A hard, scrabbling 2-1 victory in Nashville provided a brief change
of pace before the Hawks' southern California tour which consisted of
blowout losses to Pacific powerhouses L.A. and Anaheim.
If any doubt persisted before this Western swing, it has been fully
erased: this is a bad hockey team.
They do the little things bad, and they do the big things bad. They
don't score goals, and they don't play defense. Their power play
sucks, but not as bad as their penalty kill.
Turn on their ownership-sanctioned radio broadcast and hear their
paid hacks ripping the team, and you know this is as low as a team
can get.
The funny thing is, there are some good hockey players on this team.
They're certainly no less talented than Toronto, Buffalo, Florida or
any number of mid-level NHL teams. They just play bad hockey.
Really bad hockey. Sickeningly god-awful hockey.
I mean, I'll watch the IHL, I'll watch college hockey, cripes I even
watched the women's Olympic tournament. But if the LCS
Hockey publishers didn't pay me so much I sure as hell wouldn't
watch the Blackhawks.
Why, you might ask, would a reasonably talented team play like a
herd of drug-addled courtesans? (Don't ask me how drug-addled
courtesans play hockey, but it can't be good.) Could it be, I
don't know . . .
COACHING?!
Actually, I don't know if it's poor coaching that's ruining this
team, but as the old Magic 8-Ball would say, signs point to yes.
The key piece of evidence against Dirk Graham's staff is the Hawks'
ability to appear as if they've never played together, never
practiced together, hell, never bumped into each other on the dance
floor at Excalibur.
With all the off-season changes in the Blackhawks' roster, one might
think that getting acquainted might be an early season priority for
this squad. And perhaps that's what Dirk has in mind when he throws
four new lines out each game and then tweaks those combinations
period to period, even shift to shift.
Newcomer Doug Gilmour has centered, among others, Tony Amonte, Eric
Daze, Chad Kilger, Ethan Moreau, Bob Probert, J.P. Dumont, Mike
Maneluk, Reid Simpson, and Dennis Bonvie. Early on it looked like
Amonte and Gilmour might have some chemistry, lately Amonte and
Alexei Zhamnov have looked like a promising pair, but no trio has
skated together long enough to get a feel for where each guy likes
to be on the ice, or to get any timing on offensive rushes.
Contributing further to the lack of continuity has been Graham's
itchy trigger finger when it comes to benching those players he
feels aren't playing "Blackhawk hockey". This often results, as it
did in the November 10 game against St. Louis, in the Blackhawks'
attempting to erase two- or three-goal deficits with Eric Daze on
the bench and Reid Simpson and Dennis Bonvie on the power play.
Worst of all, Graham seems to equate "Blackhawk hockey" with
fighting of any sort. After the aforementioned St. Louis game,
Graham said he only saw two guys on the ice worthy of wearing the
indian-head sweater: Simpson and Bonvie. And what did these two
NHL superstars do to earn their coach's good will?
They picked fights in the first five minutes of the game. Not real
hockey fights which grow organically out of a hard-hitting,
emotional game. No, these were the perfunctory, uninspired
wrestle-and-fall-down events where you can almost see one goon
apologizing to the other during the fray:
"Sorry, coach said I had to."
Then Graham had the audacity to rip the rest of the team for not
responding to such displays of courage and dignity. Yes, the game
was a disgrace, but not for the reasons Dirk had in mind.
It seems that, as feared, Graham's junior-B coaching tactics have
confused the kids and alienated the veterans to the point where
they're just not listening. Whether this season is salvageable or
not remains to be seen, but maybe next year we can give a
big-league coach a try.
At Least We Got Rid of Weinrich
With the swap of faltering goaltenders a wash for now, the
six-player Hawks-Habs trade must be judged on the four defensemen
involved. Brad Brown and Nasreddine look pretty much the same:
big, marginally skilled, willing to mix it up; so the key to the
deal is Weinrich for Dave Manson. And in a loud chorus Hawks fans
reply "We'll take it."
Weinrich was a league-low minus-13 at the time of the trade, but
statistics don't do justice to the enormity of his defensive sins.
He was a lock to commit at least one gross defensive miscue each
game, more than once resulting directly in a goal for the
opposition. Manson, on the other hand, has generally made the safe
play in his three starts with the Hawks, and offensively doesn't
suffer by comparison to Weinrich as much as reputation would have
you believe.
News and Notes
Astute observers noted that Larry Robinson had his No. 1 power-play
unit on the ice for a Kings' two-man advantage against the Hawks
last Saturday. No problem, you say? Well, it was 4-0 Kings with a
minute left in the game, so Ray Ferraro's goal to make it 5-0 could
be construed as running up the score. However, two facts argue
against any future bad blood over this incident. 1) It was in
response to numerous cheap shots by the Hawks, and 2) The Hawks
aren't interested enough to carry a grudge for more than half a
period . . . . Jocelyn Thibault made his Hawks debut in net against
L.A. and looked solidly mediocre, allowing five goals on 32
shots.
