Anybody Else Tired Of The Ribbons?

If so, get a load of this site. Hell, even Roeper liked it.

Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas, yo

Nothin' new here, Boss Hogg

Are we actually supposed to post anything new? I'm too busy digging shit up for this little quiz we got. I hope that excuse is kosher for now.

My story, you ask? Uh . . . it's comin' along.

Any Organization Created Out Of Fear Must Create Fear In Order To Survive

I had been told that Phil's Sports Bar in Elmwood Park was an establisment owned by a "huge" Wolves fan and showed every game. So I stopped there this week to hopefully catch a game against the San Antonio Rampage and get a couple more interviews.

Well, what I found when I got there was a bartender heavily invested in combing the pages of the latest issue of "The Star," a woman eating mozzarella sticks, and two guys who had to get home by eight. There was a Wolves jersey in the bar - framed on the wall, with no apparent autograph. The owner is in Florida for the next couple weeks and Comcast Sports pre-empted the Wolves with a different hockey game - Notre Dame against Michigan.

So in other words - a total bust. I asked the owner to call me, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Still, I think the five interviews will not be a problem for the final project. Those numbers to shape the story . . . are coming along. A couple of the links we were introduced last week have given me a lot of new options, but not anything I want to rush to post . . . yet.

Focus!

No, I don't know what this blog is about anymore either. Still, in the past week, I've signed up to stop telemarketing calls, given the president a brain, and discovered "Wu" I really am ("Slumbering Pierrot," for the record).

Progress is being made, I'm sure.

Homecoming Weekend

Day One


There has been no collective bargaining session since September 9 – nearly a week before the previous agreement expired. Gary Bettman doesn’t seem concerned, but why should he when he’s getting a . . . standing ovation? Did somebody miss their hockey SAT? Wasn’t somebody I saw just the other day feeling, well - quite a bit differently? How intense are the feelings over this lockout thing? I dunno. Seems like around this town, regardless of how bad your Bulls or your Bears are, there’s not many people shedding tears about hockey’s deep freeze over at the U.C. They’re growing skeptical down south, and even some of the defending champs aren’t too pleased with their supposed ring ceremony. Of course, they don’t call it The Igloo for nothing.

With the Blackhawks locked out of the United Center, it would seem logical that hockey fans would migrate to the Allstate Arena in Rosemont for the AHL’s Wolves. After all – at least they’ve had some success over the past decade of their existence, regardless the name of the title. And the reports seem to indicate the minors are doing better; they’re thinking sell-out for the league’s All-Star game, and the Philadelphia Phantoms are on a record roll.

Still, with their team on the road for the past three weeks, Wolves fans and Rosemont residents don’t see too much of a difference. I purchased my ticket to Saturday night’s game, wondering exactly what I’d be stepping into.

“Generally, I don't feel that anything has really changed much,” said Larissa Gasinski. “This year, however, there are more season ticket holders. There are also more of the ‘clueless’ fans who come to enjoy the concessions rather than the game, and you wish they wouldn't have even bothered coming . . . Other than that, I don't see many drastic changes.”

Gasinski, 17, lives 10 minutes from the Allstate Arena and has season tickets. “Some people just don’t care to actually watch the game,” Gasinski said.

Brian Cane, 19, is a Rosemont resident who has attended a couple Wolves games over the years “when there was nothing else to do,” but he didn’t believe the NHL lockout was having any noticeable effect on the area. “You see more of the people with the jerseys when there’s a game,” Cane said. “I wouldn’t say there’s a ton more than last year, or any other year. The traffic’s still worse after a concert than a hockey or football [Chicago Rush] game.”

Michelle Huege, 28, has been bartending at the Chili’s right outside the Allstate Arena since the restaurant opened three years ago. She said that she still has her “regulars” who are avid Wolves fans, but agrees that not much has changed. “It depends on how they do,” Huege said. “When they do well, there’s more hype and more people. Usually around January, mid-season, is when everybody gets into it.”

The Wolves average attendance for the season has dropped each year sine they began play at the Allstate, despite usually being among the top draws in the minors. That decline may be due more to the lack of public interest in the sport of hockey than the Wolves themselves. “The guys and the organization are great,” Gasinski said.

I came home Friday night, standing in open-mouthed shock in front of the television. I can’t believe it was only a couple of weeks ago that I picked up a used book that focuses on what had long been considered the most violent act in basketball history. I can’t help but immediately wonder what Kermit or Rudy would say about this.

Some invitations to tag along for tomorrow’s Wolves game were turned away. Mostly out of bad timing, but also in large part to a lack of interest in attending a hockey game. Some seem to view fans of hockey with the same type of bloodlust they apply to fans of NASCAR; some people yearn more for fights than they do goals, just as some people yearn for crashes more than they do completed laps.

Hockey isn’t without its violence, certainly. The whole Bertuzzi thing came to mind. Then again, so did basketball's Artest. And baseball's Frank Francisco. The list is endless, I'm sure.

“If there was a good fight was when I guess I got my money’s worth,” Cane said. “You can sit through a couple hours and only see a couple goals, so you need a little excitement in between.”

My head hurts, and all I can do is go to sleep, wondering just how excited I should be about what tomorrow will bring. Hopefully I will not be apologizing to those who opted to tag along.



Day Two


It’s all over the television today - every channel, every hour. People are actually trying to make points about the pandemonium in Auburn Hills by asking if this has something to do with race; defending Ron Artest; feeling sorry for the idiots who went onto the court. Can nobody see this for what it was? It isn’t until a caller on the radio a few days later asks if the fight could have been prevented - had the freakishly fit Ed Hochuli been the official on the scene – that I finally feel a sense of humor has been restored.

There’s nothing about hockey on today. No mention of news regarding the lockout, now 65 days old. Certainly nothing about the Wolves. It’s a gloomy, overcast day that’s supposedly 45 degrees, but feels much colder.

It’d been a long time since I’d been to the Allstate, and I was immediately reminded of just how small it is. Unfamiliar with what Wolves parking is usually like, it certainly seemed like there were a healthy number of cars tonight. Upon entering, there’s a small fenced-in area where a handful of puppies plays in front of families just arriving. It’s a pet adoption thing the Wolves do during various games over the course of the season.

Half the crowd is wearing a hockey jersey of some Chicago sort; two Wolves to every Blackhawk. The names and numbers on the backs vary widely: Young, 1; Roenick, 27; Brown, 44; Belfour, 30; Maltais, 11; Chelios, 7. Others have fresh Wolves or faded Hawks T-shirts.

Paul Reno, a 35-year-old carpenter from “the cornfields” of New Lenox, has been a Wolves fan for two years. “Since my son got old enough to get interested in it,” Reno says.

Living about 40 miles from the Allstate Arena, Reno says he used to go to Blackhawk games, but his two-and-a-half-year-old son, Zach, just loves hockey in general. “All the way here,” Reno says, “that’s all he was saying. ‘Wanna see skates, wanna see skates.’”

It’s the fourth time this year Reno has made it to a Wolves game, and he admits he’s thought about season tickets. “Everything’s a lot cheaper here,” Reno says, making comparison to the costs of attending a Blackhawks game. “We’re sitting right down by the ice. It’s 80 bucks, at least, minimum, to even get close to the ice [at the United Center]. Here, it’s 32.”

Reno says he thinks the NHL lockout is good for the Wolves. “It definitely brought a lot more people out because it’s a lot more crowded this year than last year,” Reno says.

When the P.A. announcer introduces the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks, he says the visiting team name with an utter (and intentional) lack of enthusiasm. The lights in the arena go down as the green eyes glow on a large wolf prop and fire shoots out of its paws. The starters for the home team emerge from the prop’s open mouth to that anthem to end all anthems, Motley Crue’s “Kick Start My Heart.”

Forty seconds into the game, gloves and helmets are scattered across the ice after the evening’s first fight breaks out. The eight-year-old seated behind us jumps out of his seat with giddy excitement.

It’s also the first Wolves game for Dennis Klitzka, a 35-year-old warehouse manager from Wilmot. “We probably went to about 20 NHL games a year,” Klitzka says.

Klitzka lives about four miles over the border of Illinois and Wisconsin, and has also come to the game with his son; five-year-old Kevin. With the lockout in the NHL, he says they will be coming back. “Either here or I’ll go watch the Admirals play up in Milwaukee,” Klitzka says.

“It’s tough on both sides,” Klitzka says about the lockout. “The pay rate for the low-end players should come up. It should be more of a balance.

Rebecca Urban, 32, attended her first Wolves game six years ago. She comes to the Allstate “once every couple years,” but the Wheeling resident admits that tonight seems a little more well-attended than previous visits. “I was surprised at the turnout,” Urban says. “The last event I was at last year for Cub Scouts, it was half this – if not less.”

About midway through the second period, Skates, the Wolves mascot, escorts a man down to his seat where he proposes to his girlfriend – on camera. She accepts in front of the entire arena and receives a round of applause. A little while later, closer to the end of the period, a wave begins to form around the arena. It gathers participants each time around and continues to circle the ice until the period ends with the Wolves ahead 3-0.

“I go to more Wolves games than Hawks games primarily because of the price and the fact that I live really close, and it’s convenient as heck,” says Greg Snyder, a 38-year-old sales manager.

Snyder says he thinks the NHL season is “done,” but admits the lockout will help AHL teams the Wolves. “The lockout’s going to hurt some of those expansion teams, but you’re talking about the AHL – this league – picking up teams and that’s just going to help,” Snyder says. “The more teams that are in this league, it’s good. Especially with communities like a Peoria or some of these third-tier markets that don’t have anything else.”

“You know, you’ve got millionaires fighting against billionaires,” Snyder says of the NHL work stoppage. “If you look at it, really, the average income of a hockey player pales in comparison to the other major league sports. So should they earn more money? Probably. Is anybody worth that kind of money? I don’t know.”

The Wolves end up shutting out the Ducks, 3-0. It is reported that the game drew 16,308 fans, a statistic that raises the eyebrows of more than a few people.

The following Wednesday, the attendance drops to 6,219 for a home game with the Houston Aeros. The Wolves organization, due to the “inclement weather” that day, is offering any fan (who attended the game or not) an opportunity to redeem their stub for a free ticket to a home game against Cincinnati on December 15. The following Saturday, 9,166 come to Allstate to watch Grand Rapids win 3-2.

As of Monday, the Wolves average attendance through eight home games is 8,673. It’s the third-highest total in the league, and it’s just short of what the Wolves averaged during the 1999/2000 season.

And because I only found out about it recently, there’s issues the fans have with Aramark – who has issues of their own. The popular Sports Bar in the Allstate is now open for private parties only, and some fans say they already have enough trouble getting vendors to come into the upper deck. The Sports Bar was a pre-game meeting area for some fans, and one can only wonder how long the Allstate will keep with their private party theme.

U2: Any thoughts on the NHL?