The Return of Hull and Mikita

Sam,
The Hawks never forgave Hull for jumping to the WHA. His signing gave the league the legitimacy they needed.

Mikita was a strange player. He started off as a bit of Darcy Tucker pain-in-the-ass kinda guy then eventually won the Lady Byng.

 

Without a doubt!

 

Mikita's Manager, Glen: I'd never done a crazy thing in my life before that night. Why is it, that if a man kills another man in battle it's called heroic; yet if he kills a man in the heat of passion, it's called murder?

Wayne: Ho-woh! What do you think you're doing? Only me and Garth get to talk to the camera.

 

If the Blackhawks get good, they'll seize Jordan-Bulls cachet around the city in no time. Chicago, like Detroit in the 1970s-1990s, is a great hockey market driven comatose by incompetent-idiot owners.

 

According to most reports, the United Center has been slowly and slowly filling up as the season has gone on, with tonight being sold out.

Having Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews there is going to do nothing but help that resurgence.

 

Just saw pieces of the tribute on On The Fly. Fantastic.

If you're interested, it comes on about 40 minutes into the show.

 

I can't imagine another one of the Original 6 waiting this damn long to retire the jerseys of two of the best to ever wear their sweaters (and the Blackhawks road jerseys, now the home ones, also looked great).
Shows you how fucked up that franchise has been. At least the Jacobs family isn't running them.

 

I'm not a Hawks fan by any stretch of the imagination, but it was pretty cool to watch this tonight (on TV, no less!). They've got a good, young team that is steadily grabbing the attention of Chicago fans. It helps that the Bulls suck, but Rocky Wirtz has done miracles in a very short time.
I believe they have another one of these nights planned for Tony Esposito.

Rough Mix -- I'm with you. Secord still sucks!

An aside: My biggest disappointment -- and maybe only one -- since moving to Chicago was when I found out that Stan Mikita did not have a donut shop in Aurora. First day in the office I asked how to get there, and the guy in the next cubicle slowly shook his head in pity at the poor dweeb who thought it actually existed in the first place.

 

Chicago writers Friday were pretty united in saying the big gap between Hull and Mikita and the Hawks was Bob Pulford, who has been kicked upstairs in recent months. Can't imagine Pulford was there to roll out the red carpet tonight.

 

For a very long time, Ted Lindsay was.

 

Actually, Pulford no longer has anything to do with the Hawks. He was moved over to the liquor business the Wirtz family also owns and operates.

 

Then again, a lot of teams don't embrace GM/coaches who run the team into the ground for a few years afterward. And Ted's a prickly guy at best.