A LITTLE HAWK TALK

A LITTLE HAWK TALK

Thoughts While Awai ting the Big Game

 And so this is what it comes down to. One of the closest, craziest and best NHL playoff series most of us have ever experienced  has its finale Saturday night. The winner moves on to play for the Stanley Cup which at this point is almost anticlimactic. After all we've been through, our team and us, shouldn't we get the Cup  immediately?  There's a good chance whoever wins Saturday will wind up with it anyway.

  This bruising,bumping,nail biting, table banging , foot stomping roller coaster ride through Round 3 is almost finished and someone  is going home devastated  and disappointed...not to mention tired, and I don't mean a good kind of tired.

    There is nothing in sports like a Game 7. I collect 'em. There is almost no sport with a best of seven playoff format that I won't watch when the final game decides the winner. And this time I have a considerable emotional investment.

      I've jumped, high fived and yelled through our good times and cursed, retreated and shut the television off in disgust when we went bad. I decorated the house in Hawk and took them all down when I felt my fandom had been betrayed. A wise friend said you must experience the low points with your team because it makes the high points more joyful and that is correct. But I can't stand seeing my team, from whom I expect so much, fail to deliver. We are fortunate that in Chicago we have one team from which we can expect excellence..a team with the heart of a champion. When they sleepwalk through an opening period or cough up the lead in 37 seconds, I don't take it very well.

       I don't want anyone to be the kind of fan I've become. During game 4 the stress of the fight made me retreat from the bar in which we watched the game. I found a cozy spot on the deck outside and watched from the window to get out of the emotionally charged atmosphere. Sometimes during these games I have to get away. I wish I could enjoy the good and tolerate the bad a bit better. But I've had my sports spirit broken so many times over the years, the prospect of the one team that can deliver the payoff for avid fandom failing to play to its capabilities and bring us what we deserve just makes me want to retreat until things are more to my liking. Heck, I was in the yard last year when a group of friends in  my house watched The LA Kings score the deciding goal that eliminated the Hawks in Game 7 and deprived them of playing for a Cup they would have won.  I would've staid in the yard until the new season started if they hadn't come and got me! And with the memory of that awful ending still dancing in  my head, into the lions den I go again under the same circumstances but we've gone from a King to a Duck. I don't want us to crash and burn again, goals short of our ultimate goal.

       Who knows what's going to happen in Game 7? I've never been the kind of fan who blindly believes. They're gonna win....support the team! Never Give Up! All that sounds great but I read and I listen and I digest the thoughts and feelings of those who know more hockey than I will ever know and I like to think I am a fairly knowledgeable fan .

        Here's why I like the Hawks. They've been there before...it's difficult to think that they can be thrown into any situation they've not seen previously and to which they can't adapt. A bunch of Californians without the passion for hockey possessed by midwesterners chanting "Craaaawwwww-foooorrrrd" at our goalie and making noise for the home team shouldn't mean a thing to the Hawks. I'd rather be playing at home, but the environment is of no consequence.

      Also, the Hawks have been finding the net pretty often the last two games. The Ducks goalie ,Frederik Andersen has been netminding more like Hans Christian Anderson . This guy is not en elite goalie. He has made some quality saves but the Hawks have beaten goalies with much more talent than this guy. You might remember the Minnesota Goalie, Devan Dubnyk, was the hockey flavor of the month, lauded as the NHL's hottest goalie until the Hawks pantsed him in 4 straight games. I'm sure some of that had to do with the Wild defense but you get my point.  Fred Andersen is going to take down the mighty Hawks? For the second straight game, Fred tied his playoff record for most goals allowed-4. (he let in 4 in game 6 cuz one was an ampty netter). This is not a good time to become porous, Fred.

        The Ducks coach, an egg shaped fellow with ruddy cheeks, Bruce Boudreau, may have been a little too forthcoming after Game 6 when he admitted that for the first time in this series, the Ducks lost their composure in Game 6. So let's see... we have a suddenly swiss cheese goaltender and a team the coach admits lost their way right here on the eve of Game 7. "We turned into a bunch of nervous Nellies", Boudreau said. Yikes. You never want to hear that about your team, especially as Game 7 puck drop nears.

         AND, for the first time in this series the Hawks stars shined brightly. The guys who we depend on to come through were there and they were sniping. We have not seen that collection of goal scorers in this series previously. Putting Kane and Toews on the same line is generally an option Coach Q uses when the situation is desperate and the result is more often than not what you saw in 6. That is hockey dynamite- two genuine NHL superstars skating together and making magic with a hockey puck.If the Hawks stars  come to play again in 7 it is tough to see how they won't come away with a ticket to the finals.

          Plus, we have Duncan Keith, a mountain of a hockey player who is being referred to in other worldy terms for his play in the post season. We are looking at the best defenseman to ever skate in Chicago.

            History indicates that the Hawks get better the longer a series goes on.

BUT!   Here's why I like the Ducks.

While the place the Hawks are playing shouldn't effect them, it sure seems to effect the Ducks. They respond to that stupid chanting their Californicated fans present them with and it is hard to argue that they do not. The Ducks have not lost a game in the entire post season in regulation time. And even then they've only lost once. This is a team that won't go down on their home ice. 

    Toews and Kane will not be playing on the same line this time around. The offensive jolt that gave the Hawks was nice but now things will be different. Kane and Toews will be split up because on the same line, they make the second line (on which Kane plays) weaker and more vulnerable. They share the wealth when they split up these two. But, you say, the second line didn't seem to suffer in the Game 6 victory without Patrick Kane.  True, but because we were at home, Coach Q had the last line change and he could schedule that lessened second line against any Duck line he chose. Now that Anaheim has last line change, Q  doesn't have the luxury of winning the match up game. If you see Kane and Toews on the same line at some point Saturday, it would mean we are in trouble.

     The Ducks are a big, bruising team whose strategy has been to hit the Hawks hard and often to wear them down and slow them down.Often it has worked, Thursday it did not. But you KNOW that in this game 7, the Ducks are going to hit even harder and more often than they have previously. This is gonna be a slugfest and I won't be surprised if we see our first real fight of the series.

       Ryan Kessler and Cory Perry are the Toews and Kane of the Ducks and they have been more impressive than the Hawks twosome in this series. That might be heresy but it is also true. Just as it is true that the Ducks have been the better team over these 6 games. They were eliminated in game 7 and round 3 last year just like the Hawks and they are determined not to let that happen again.

       I'm not going to predict this. The Hawks have a maddening habit of giving their best only when they must. By all accounts Thursday's elimination game was their best game of the series. Will we get the Hawks team that flies around, practices puck possesion, offensive creativity and a Keith-Crawford combo that can't be penetrated? Or will they come out ,"nervous nellies" themselves, letting the Ducks feed off the momentum of the crowd and the prize that awaits the winner? They will do anything not to lose this in front of their fans who will be surfing next day no matter what happens.

      Pay close attention to the first ten minutes. That might tell you alot about the next 50.

       Go Hawks!