From the Archives: Chicago - 3/23/08

Sunday, March 23, 2008
10:42 pm

it was just today that I really began to understand the dichotomy of certain aspects of life here compared to back home. a lot of things are similar, sure. it seems that most strangers in the city are equally as timid, although I do receive the occasional random comment from someone about my trench coat in both places. recently a surprising amount of these have been compliments, which is quite a deviation from the paradigm. let me set the scene for the typical comment I received about it before a couple months ago:

I'd be walking down the street, in a store, in the mall, etc., perhaps having a conversation with a friend or just walking by myself, and from the opposite direction would approach a small herd of high-school aged kids dressed in societally-claimed cool clothes purchased from any place you might expect and bearing a large indicator of the fact so that everyone who sees them is well aware of their knowledge of current fashion trends. as we pass each other, I mind my own business, talking to whomever I'm with or just entertaining to my inner dialogue. however, they do not choose to provide me the same courtesy. instead, after they are behind me, I hark upon the faint whisper of the word "freak," or something to that effect, presumably spoken under the assumption that it was said quietly enough for me to not hear by the self-proclaimed shepherd of the flock, to which all others simply acquiesced to. this is immediately followed by the obedient, muffled laughter of his cronies. the first couple times this happened I experienced some kind of quasi-offense, but now I tend to just write these people off as self-serving, immature and intolerant and respond with a very polite sounding, "thank you very much!" even stopping in mid-sentence to do so if necessary. then I continue walking as they quicken their pace and try to pretend as if they had never triggered the event to begin with.

ehem, well, I went off on a bit of a tangent there, as I've a tendency of doing. anyway, for some reason I've been receiving positive comments about my coat lately and I've yet to discover any kind of explanation. granted, these haven't been coming in abundance; just a one every few weeks or so, but it's a welcome change. but now, time to get back on course.

the point of that rant was to segue into an area of life that I've discovered to be profoundly different here in Chicago than it is back in Michigan, and that is the attitude and approach to the wonderful sport of hockey. I am, and always have been, a Detroit Red Wings fan, but I'm a fan of the game in general, so Dave and I decided to catch a Blackhawks game while I was in town. my hopes at the beginning of the season were to see a Wings game here in Chicago, but there were conflicts with that, which may not be such a bad thing considering our rather dismal record against them this season. we both woke up a bit late, so we had to head out pretty much as soon as we got out of bed. we took the El and then once we got off we had to walk a few blocks to the United Center, which will henceforth be referred to as UC.




approaching the United Center.


we purchased two tickets for a whopping $24 total. for those of you unaware, the cheapest tickets available for games in Detroit cost $22 which almost rivals the price of two in Chicago. the only exception that I'm aware of are the $9 Wings tickets which were implemented just this season, and are quite hard to come by due to a limited supply and the necessity to purchase them in person at the Joe Louis Arena (JLA) box office as opposed to online or over the phone. I have stories of these adventures, but they can wait until another day.

I haven't been to many professional hockey games, and this was the first one that I've been to outside of Detroit. I must admit that the UC is a bit nicer arena than JLA, although I would expect it to be considering that the UC has only been in operation for about 13 years and JLA is approaching more than twice that age. UC is much more modern, with escalators providing convenient access to all levels, as opposed to JLA where the upper and lower decks are only reachable by stairs once inside the actual stadium. the UC corridors seem much wider, which makes getting around a lot easier, although this could just be an illusion caused by a difference in attendance in each building. the seats allow for a bit more leg room, which is a concern for a Peron of my frame.

we wandered around the halls for a little while, searching for our section. I decided to wear my Red Wings Steve Yzerman jersey to the game, assuming that since they were playing a different team, I wouldn't receive too much flak over it.

this was wrong.

I was informed by several people that "the Red Wings suck." now, I'll admit that Detroit has been less than stellar against the Blackhawks this season (I think our current record against them is 2-3-1) but we are dominating them in overall points. even after Chicago won today's game against St. Louis, Detroit is still almost 30 points ahead of them. this made me realize something; Dave has relayed stories about the extent of some of the drug use here, but this instance solidified my understanding of it. the only way I could rationalize these people's logic was to assume that they were on drugs so intense that they actually thought that they were existing not in the present, but in the 1970s during the "Dead Wings" era. I shudder to think of the aftermath of such negligence.

while we were walking around it became quickly apparent that I was not going to experience hockey like I would in Detroit. see, Detroit hockey fans go to a Wings game solely for that reason; to see a Red Wings hockey game. I've had the joy of going to five Detroit Red Wings games so far this season and every game as been equally enjoyable in terms of the atmosphere and people. a majority of the fans obviously possess a bias but tend to be quite amiable toward outsiders and opposition. there isn't a lot going on besides the game, and everything fancy is happening on the ice. but we've had a powerhouse team for about a decade and a half and the fans don't require any extraneous entertainment because our team more than provides it. but Chicago has had a failing team for quite a while now (although with the recent additions of Kane and Toews, that may soon change) and it takes more to satisfy the fans than just a hockey game. there are mascots for teams that have nothing to do with the sport, and may not even actually belong to a team; I saw cats and dogs, birds (possibly a pelican). hell, I think I even spotted a goddamn dinosaur. anyway, more on that later...

now, I can't really tell you how good the seats were for the tickets we purchased, because I truly have no idea. however, I can show you the view from the seats that sat in.




there was an annoying kid in front of me, but he does not appear in this picture.


once we settled in, we talked for a few minutes. I reminisced and told stories about amazing plays made by the likes of Nick Lidstrom and Pavel Datsyuk I'd seen this season. but then, the lights went down and things got loud. that's when the video started playing on the scoreboard and there was a small laser light show on the ice. I took a short video of it, but the quality is terrible because it was on a digital camera.



the Blackhawks own animated teams.


I'd estimate that this movie ran for a duration of at least four minutes, possibly closer to five. much of it was computer generated and showed off the amazing abilities of the players when faced with animated opponents. then it showed highlights from previous (real) games; goals, saves, hits, etc. this was something else I was not used to, as there is nothing similar to this in Detroit. the players simply skate out, warmup for a few minutes, and then the game begins. the video was well received by the Hawks fans. I suppose they need something to be excited about since their team rarely delivers...

after the teams warmed up and the anthem was sung, the game began. I was disappointed to see that Hannu Toivonen was in net for the Blues since I was hoping to see Manny Legace, but I shrugged it off and just prepared to enjoy the game. almost immediately I found myself analyzing nearly every play made and finding most decisions to be wrong. for every pass, deke and shot I would try to imagine what Lidstrom or Zetterberg would have done instead, and then try to continue the play from there in my head. it was difficult to try to imagine what Datsyuk would have done because he is, as some of you already know, a ninja, which makes him very unpredictable. this made the game a bit more interesting and made me even further appreciate the team here in Detroit. Chicago is a relatively young team with a lot of players without a lot of experience, and it shows in their play. I saw them make a lot of mistakes synonymous with rookie players. a symptom of this is the attitude of the fans. after having a bad team for so long, the fans have been forced to lower their standards. if there is ruckus among the crowd at a Wings game, then you know that something substantial just happened. however, standard and mediocre plays generally induced a cacophony of "oohs" and "ahhs" from the Chicago crowd. orthodox plays like dump ins from center ice that happen to be on net were received by excited anticipation by most of those in attendance.

for those of you who haven't been to a hockey game, then you are probably unaware of this, but there are people who clear off the ice during commercial breaks. while the players are skating and tearing up the ice, snow starts to build up and it makes skating more difficult, so whenever there are commercials a few people come out with shovels to clear some of the snow off around the nets where most of the action takes place. in Detroit, these people are generally males, seemingly in their late teens, maybe early 20s. but in Chicago, just to further reiterate that hockey games are not to be viewed as the only source of entertainment at the UC, the people that clear the ice are very attractive, very young women wearing pink jackets and bunny ears, who I deemed the Playboy Shovel Bunnies.




Playboy Shovel Bunnies


Playboy Shovel Bunnies video. once again, sorry for the quality.


to be fair, they don't always dress that way. I was watching a Chicago game on television and they showed them briefly and they weren't wearing pink jackets or bunny ears. instead a bikini top was solely responsible for concealing their upper bodies. apparently they aren't called the Playboy Shovel Bunnies, but the Chicago Blackhawks Ice Crew. I found this to be kind of ridiculous, but I'm certainly not inclined to complain...

anyhow, the game started off pretty slow. no goals were scored in the first period, and nothing else particularly interesting happened. thankfully things got exciting during the intermission due to a riveting mascot game.




I swear one of those is a dinosaur.


sorry about the shaky-cam. I was trying to make it edgy.


fortunately things picked up in the second. St. Louis struck first with a goal about halfway through the second period, but Chicago tied it with a couple minutes left, making it 1-1 going into the third. Chicago went up 2-1 with about 11 minutes left, but St. Louis quickly answered back with a goal tying it up at 2. with just a couple minutes left in the game it looked like they were headed to overtime, but Tkachuk scored on a breakaway on a steal after Kane lost control of the puck, putting the Blues up 3-2 with just over a minute left. however, Chicago refused to fucking die and tied it up less than 30 seconds later, forcing the game into overtime, and this was when I got swept up in the ineluctable excitement of the game. Chicago went on to win in overtime on a goal by Kane off a rebound, redeeming himself for the giveaway that lead to Tkachuck's go-ahead goal that almost made them lose. this outcome came much to Dave's dismay, as he was hoping for the home team to lose. admittedly, so was I, but I enjoyed the end of the game too much to care about that.

as the crowd cheered and the players celebrated on the ice, Dave and I started to make our way out of the stadium. we went to the bathroom before we left and I overheard conversations between ecstatic Blackhawks fans about what an "amazing game" it was, additional proof of the lowered standards there. much of the game was fairly dull, although I will admit that once it got heated at the very end and during overtime, things got quite interesting.

after leaving the arena we made our way to the El. along the way we encountered an SUV full of kids who decided to honk the horn and scream out the window at us as they passed by. apparently they did so rather thoughtlessly as they were forced to stop at a red light not more than roughly 75 feet in front of us, and were, I assume, immediately made to feel like jackasses.

after the game we headed to the Melting Pot to enjoy a very nice and pleasantly lengthy dinner. we discussed life and philosophy and shared observations over some delicious fondue. Dave dominated most of the conversation, as he has a tendency to do, although I've never minded. he sees things in a way completely different from me and takes many things into great consideration that I generally never even provide a second thought. this uniqueness has inspired many great monologues that I've had the enjoyment of... I guess "interpreting" would be the most accurate word.

after dinner we went back to his apartment and started watching Gangs of New York and I started writing about today. just a couple minutes into the movie I remembered how badass that film is. we're about an hour into it right now, and we both just decided to switch it up to Venture Bros., which I must provide my undivided attention, so it's time for me to leave.

"oh! was it worth it Shaq?!"

-jon