OT: Red Wings vs Hawks Game 6 Open Thread
Hoist one for the fallen.
Elimination game #2. The Hawks squirmed out a bit from under the Wings' boot, but the Wings can still eliminate them with a win at the Joe, which will be rockin'. Don't really want to go back to Chicago for game 7, so they need to bring more energy. And stay out of the damn box!
TV: 8 PM ET, CBC, NCBS
Let's Go Red Wings!
FINISH THEM!
I'm from Michigan and played hockey since the late 70s.
After I graduated from UM in 95, I lived in San Fran for a year as I thought of going to grad school at either Cal or Stanford (top programs for my field of study). That didn't turn out and I eventually needed to get a real job to support myself. But in the meantime, I found multiple places to play inline hockey in SF neighborhoods as well as an indoor rink there, not far from Giants' stadium.
I ended up moving to Chicago as I had some contacts here and family still in Detroit area. I was pretty happy to be moving back to an Original Six city, thinking I'd get all kinda hockey action here. Well, turns out, if I talked to anyone about hockey here, they looked at me like I was from the moon. They don't give the least amount of fucks about it unless their team is in first place.
I've only found one place to play outdoor inline hockey here and that was from some random Craigslist post I found, and they only played at 10 in the morning on Sundays on the far north side of the city. You'll never find a group of people just playing in some neighborhood here. People don't play or care about the game in the city. I did end up playing at Johnny's Ice House for a few years when I had some friends from Detroit who played here.
I realize that old man Wirzt did plenty to hurt hockey in this city, but you are full of shit if you think the people here care the slightest about it when the Hawks are no good. It is the biggest bandwagon population in professional sports.
I have been in Chicago for less than a year, and I've been really frustrated at the lack of inline/street/pickup hockey. I used to play every day at Elbel before they put the stupid turf in, but haven't found anything close here. I did actually play ice in an outdoor league here this past winter, which was pretty fun.
I played at Elbel all the time while in school. Michigan hockey players were frequently playing with us over there.
If you know anybody who plays, let me know and maybe we can get something going.
To add to my post: up until about 6 years ago when the hawks got good, I used to go to every Wings/hawks game and there were 75% Wings fans there. With "Let's go Red Wings" chants drowning out the moronic "Detroit Sucks" chants the mouth breather "fans" are so pleased about. See, there's one difference, we actually cheer on our team rather than just denigrating the opposing team. That's the kinda thing that a Nashville fanbase does, i.e., know-nothing hockey fans.
I got a free ticket from a friend to a hawks/avs game about 10 years ago. Even though I hate both teams, I figured I'd go just to see a pro game. There couldn't have been more than 5000 people in attendence. It was disgraceful for an Original Six team. Tell me again how great that hawks fanbase is. What a joke.
Gotta regroup... Really don't want to end up as the next epic choke job in sports... Still one shot left, and I want to really hand it to those jack-off Hawks in game 7... I'm sick of them... Go Wings
The Hockey Gods were happy to let the Wings win while no one had hope. As soon as hope was in the fans' hearts, the Gods took it away.
Alas.
Babcock made a great point after the game that this team shouldn't lose confidence from this tonight... While a loss is a loss, they didn't come in and squash us. They took what we gave them, and we need to take what they give us in game 7 on Wednesday.
LWLWWL Everybody would be in awe of the Red Wings pushing the Hawks to a game 7
I can't speak for all Blackhawks fans, but since this is a MICHIGAN board, populated by RED WINGS fans for the most part, I sometimes check in on the pulse of Wings fans, but mostly stay the hell away from NHL posts on here.
Why? For the same reason, I'd expect a Wings fan brought along to a bar in Chicago to stay quiet too. I'm not going to hide who I'm rooting for, but I'm not going to be that idiot going "YEA! TOLD YA LOSERS! WINGS SUCK!"
Just know that the city of Chicago has lots of Hawks fans slowly coming back after being driven off during the mid-90s, 2000s. And lots of has to do with the fact that anybody between the ages of 18-35 right now wasn't able to see Blackhawks games for 15 years on local television. That kind of puts a damper on building a fanbase.
So, yes, I'm extremely happy the Hawks won tonight. And, yes, I'm hoping they win in Game 7. Good luck to you guys as well.
This will be my last post on the series/subject.
The number of Chicago douches on this board tonight has been annoying.
Pav has got to show up tomorrow, this is where the stars come out.
Go Wings!