SB Nation User Blog: hawksfan21

Tickets to the 12/27 Game

hawksfan21 — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:42:46 -0000

I'm not entirely sure this is what the fan post is supposed to be used for, so if I'm doing it wrong then I hope it gets deleted (it's only right).

Remember all those boring games against the Predators? Of course you don't. If you're even on this site, it means you probably know enough about hockey that you know good hockey when you see it, and those games haven't exactly been it. Apparently the folks on the Blackhawks ticket exchange don't know that, because they're trying to sell tickets in the last row of the 300 level for almost $60 a pop.

This is my plea to you, the good people of Second City Hockey. I've got a friend who's looking for tickets for this game for her boyfriend as a Christmas present. If you've got two extras you're willing to sell, for somewhere a little closer to face value than "double," against a team that is not only bad, but also the Hawks' opponent the night before in Nashville.

This wouldn't be a gift for him, my old pal Dave. This would be a gift for every guy who grew up on Roenick and is now dying a slow death where his girlfriend makes him watch The Holiday so often he's convinced he actually likes it (classic case of Stockholm Syndrome. It's sad is what it is). This is a gift for all of us.

If you can help, please shoot an email over to accordingtwomey AT gmail DOT com. Thanks again all.

Havlat Speaks Out... sort of

hawksfan21 — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:11:15 -0000

Matin Havlat apparently spoke with Darren Dreger of TSN about the issues he has alluded to on Twitter recently. The interview can be read here: http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=284740

I suppose I'm a little surprised that McD is such an egomaniac, but maybe I shouldn't be. I don't disagree with choosing not to re-sign Havlat, but I feel like he's already getting a ton of credit for the Hawks' resurgance, so he probably doesn't need to put his stamp on a player as well. Then again, maybe this is just the rambling of a player who wishes he was still with the organ-I-zation.

UPDATE: Puck Daddy and B.D. Gallof both have good pieces up on this situation too.

McD is also supposed to be on 670 at 11:00 to respond to Havlat - which could be quite interesting.

Winter Classic 2010- Doubling up?

hawksfan21 — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:17:24 -0000

According to a story posted on espn.com, there's a possibility that there will be 2 Winter Classic games played on Jan 1st, 2010. The story can be found here- http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=4270968 I think that this is a great idea, except for the timing. I attended the Winter Classic in Chicago and thoroughly enjoyed it. When I spoke to friends about it, many hadn't watched because they are bigger football fans and spent the day watching bowl games. I understand we don't need to make everyone a hockey fan, but wouldn't the sport get more exposure if it wasn't trying to compete with so many other events? It seems like bad marketing to try and expand your product in an already saturated market. Why not do the Winter Classic the weekend before the SuperBowl? There are no college or NFL football games to compete with, maybe an NBA game but that'd be about it. The Winter Classic is certainly a made-for-TV event, and it needs to be able to reach the largest audience possible for the NHL to best capitalize on it.

My take on Phoenix

hawksfan21 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 06:08:50 -0000

Just had a few thoughts on the Phoenix situation that I wanted to see if anybody had an opinion on. I figured I'd post here instead of my usual unintelligible rants over at Second City Hockey. I figured this would be a more appropriate place is the more diverse crowd James seems to have over here.

A theory I've heard tossed out there is that the NHL wanted a franchise in Phoenix to take advantage of some of the transplants to Phoenix from other hockey markets, whether as snowbirds or retirees. This seems to make some sense to me. I was in Glendale over my spring break for the NCAA basketball tournament. The Jobing.com arena shares a parking lot with University of Phoenix Stadium, and it just happened that the hockey and basketball games ended at the exact same time (I mean, what are the odds?). What I saw leaving the arena appeared to be about a 5:1 ratio of of Oilers jerseys to Coyotes jerseys. I'm sure this view is a little skewed by my bad memory, or maybe Coyotes fans walked out the other direction or something. And it's certainly possible that maybe the increase in Oilers fans was just a sign that you're never too old for a little spring break. But is it possible that the NHL was planning on non-Coyotes fans being a big draw in Phoenix?

I know very little geographically about Phoenix. I know that you have to travel just shy of forever from the hotel I stayed at to make it to The Job (do Yotes fans call it The Job? It'd be easier to feel sorry for them if they did), but I have no idea if that's a problem a lot of Phoenix fans would face, as I don't know where the majority of them would be coming from. I feel as though it might be a bit of a hinderance to a casual fan, though the diehards would still make it to the rink regardless.

Just another note- at a Blackhawks game against the Blue Jackets in 07, my dad and I ran into a man and his young daughter from Toronto. He told us that it was so much easier and cheaper to get game tickets and a flight to an American city than to a game in Toronto, and every year he and his daughter would do a similar trip to this. I don't know how representative this is of a typical Maple Leafs fan or the fan base in general, but I feel like if any market deserves another team, that would be it. I know how much trouble the Hawks had filling their stadium simply because games weren't on television, so it's almost difficult for me to wrap my head around the kind of devotion to the sport it would take to fly to a different city to see a game I had no rooting interest in just because it was too hard to get tickets to see my hometown team play.