Gint Aras, on the Chicago Blackhawks and why hockey is his favorite sport.
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Stanley Cup to Chicago. An entire city dancing to Chelsea Dagger. Photographs circulating of Andrew Shaw hoisting the cup over his head while blood pours down his face, blood that poured from his face for most of Game Six. Young children telling their fathers, “Dad, hockey is my favorite sport.” Yes. It’s my favorite sport, too.
If you were not a hockey fan before this series, one of the most highly rated Stanley Cup finals ever, you will never be a hockey fan. While I have trouble understanding you, in a way I envy you. Hockey, especially this kind of hockey, one game lasting almost six periods, momentum gained in one shift and lost in the next, goals scored as much by violence as eloquence, by precise intention and pin ball accident, is bad for the heart. In the end, the best team won. There they were, the victorious Blackhawks, bleeding and hobbling and beaming in the euphoria following a gang fight.
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Hockey was the first professional sport I ever saw live, back in old Chicago Stadium, before Jordan became king of the city. I could not believe it when I saw how fast that puck flies, how hard it hits the glass, and how willingly these men put themselves in front of it. My heroes were Dennis Savard and Steve Larmer, later Jeremy Roenick and Chris Chelios. If I knew my dad had tickets to games, I anticipated them with more interest than I did Christmas or any birthday I ever had.
From about 1970 on in Chicago, the Blackhawks were a cult. The city’s inferiority complex and provincialism is best represented by the hapless Cubs, while our skyscraper brawn and cement tunnel soul sing out on Sundays with the Bears. The 90′s Bulls were, up until last night, the only team to escape that fetishized Chicago narrative of inadequacy and lament, one the White Sox fan has been telling since 2005. Sure, we’ll win the title every half-century, come close in one playoff run or another. But most of the time we suck. Even if we win, it all falls apart right away, like a South Side street repaired in the summer that’s ripped open by March.
These Blackhawks, winning their second Stanley Cup in four seasons, beating recent champs in three of their four playoff series, matter, and they will in Chicago for a very long time. You can’t really call Blackhawks’ fans a cult anymore—if you do, you’re talking about a near city-wide cult, with cells of expats living worldwide. As such, its outlook is very different from how it saw itself even as recently as 2009. Boston’s Lucic scores a goal with just over seven minutes left in the third period of Game Six, with the Blackhawks leading three games to two. The Blackhawks fan of yesteryear would have signed out and held his temples. Here we go again. It’s all falling apart. We suck, and we’ll always suck. We can’t even fix our damn streets.
When I looked at the clock after that Boston score, I thought we could still win the game in regulation. Suddenly, I wanted the Hawks to win this Game Six, and in these seven minutes; it would be what these Blackhawks do, and it would kick Boston right in the gut. I was in a room with another seasoned Blackhawks fan. The Garden’s fans had yet to stop cheering when he looked at me and asked, “You think Kaner’s gonna tie this one up?”
Bickell finally found his way to the net and got it past Rask. Equalizer.
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AP Photo/Charles Krupa