I had posted previously about the World Cup (which begins in only 5 days) but there's a far older trophy being competed for just now. The Stanley Cup is awarded to the champions of professional hockey in North America, as it has been since 1893.The finals are going on this week, and my Chicago Blackhawks are in it for the first time in a long while. Chicago sports teams are typically poorly managed. For a huge, sports-mad city, the success of its teams has been pretty meagre.
The Blackhawks have been no exception to this rule. They last won the Stanley Cup in 1961. When I was a boy, they had some of the most exciting players in the game: Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita, Tony Esposito. But in typical fashion, the team squandered the talents of those players, and even worse, their legacy over the years. I was really pleased by a New York Times article on how the club has reconnected with its stars. I hope the Hawks win the Cup this year; I'm watching the games on ESPN at ungodly hours in London. But even if they don't do it this year, I'm happy to see they've recaptured their history.
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