Blackhawks’ tough new world: Stanley Cup or bust
Posted by TheHockeyGuy on October 1st, 2009
You’ve got to be kidding. The Blackhawks’ season opener is Friday? No way. Their pads haven’t had time to dry since they were eliminated by the Red Wings in Game 6 of last season’s Western Conference finals.
The hockey season is like Valentine’s Day and April 15: It sneaks up every year. Let’s hope it hasn’t snuck up on the Hawks, who after a chaotic offseason must now apply the lessons learned in last season’s breakthrough campaign. The stakes have never been higher.
It mostly boils down to how they handle success. As an organization, the Hawks have worn last season’s success like a bad toupee during an offseason that produced as many black eyes off the ice as Joel Quenneville’s team generated on it. All will be forgotten if this team turns out to be as good as it thinks it can be, and there are ample and legitimate reasons to believe that will happen. The Hawks have emerged from the chaos created by tardy qualifying offers, demoted general managers, taxi-cab confessions and knee-and-shoulder injuries as a better team on paper, if not on the ice.
If they don’t know it already, when the team plane returns home after two season-opening games against the Florida Panthers in Finland, Hawks players will learn that the days when people tousled their hair and giggled at their playoff beards ended on the muddy banks of the Detroit River. They may still be fuzzy-faced, but they aren’t cute anymore. The mood has changed. After bouncing Calgary and Vancouver from the postseason, expectations are hovering at 30,000 feet. It’s Stanley Cup finals or bust. Given all that has happened, and all we know, how can anything less than an appearance in the Cup finals be considered a success?
Click here to read the full article – By Neil Hayes of Chicago Sun-Times
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