It’s commonly said that there are 17,300 Blackhawks fans in the Chicago area–no more, no less. That’s because the Chicago Stadium seats 17,300 for a hockey game, and while the Hawks have played to sellout crowds for decades (with lulls here and there), it always seems to be the same people going back game after game. Everyone knows one or two Hawks fanatics, but these people always seem to be on the fringe of society: the young man who takes legal briefs from office to office, or the guy who always wears tennis shoes and jeans with the mandatory office necktie. Hawks fans are an intense, loyal, vocal lot–borderline normal. After all, they’re the ones who can’t keep themselves under control for even a brisk rendition of the national anthem. It’s comforting to think, however, that as noticeable as they are–and noticeable they are, in their shiny black jackets and their white home jerseys with the cool Chief Black Hawk in the center–that there are only 17,300 of them.
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Over the last month or so, I’ve done some research in the city’s bars, stopping in for a drink or two during home games. These games are blacked out–even on SportsChannel–by the Hawks’ money-grubbing Wirtz ownership, the city’s reigning tightwad sports dynasty ever since “Papa Bear” George Halas died. The Wirtzes have always sought, even in good years, to fill the Stadium to capacity for hockey games. The one way to ensure that, they’ve always believed, is to prevent the games from being televised, so that anyone who wants to see them must be in attendance. (There are rumblings that some home playoff games will be televised on WGN this season, but I’ll believe that when I see it.) The cable generation, however, has found ways around the blackout policy. A regular little cottage industry has sprung up around certain bars and their satellite dishes, which enable them to pick up visiting teams’ broadcasts from the Stadium. This violates the little “This broadcast is only for the use of . . .” admonishment delivered by the announcers at every sporting event, but it’s so common that no law-enforcement agency has been willing to crack down. Some bars even advertise that they show Hawks home games, and even beer companies abet the bars by giving away signs reading, “Hawks here on satellite,” “satellite” being the code that means “including home games.”
Last Sunday afternoon, I stopped in for a late-season matinee (they start scheduling them after the football season ends), and the bar stools were already packed at the end where the two televisions were tuned to the game. (The two TVs at the other end of the bar were devoted to the NCAA Basketball Tournament.) By the end of the first period, the stools were packed all up and down the bar, with 15 to 20 guys watching the various TVs–and I mean “guys.” The only female was a girl of about nine or ten there with her younger brother of about six. When they got bored, they’d go to their father, get another couple of quarters, and run back to the video games. Once, the boy cadged a quarter off the bartender. “Do you promise to come back in 15 years?” he asked. “Whattaya mean?” said a guy at the bar. “He’ll be back next Sunday.” Off the kids went. A fellow strolled along the bar behind all the men with their backs to him and said, “I can’t get a seat here. I feel like a hockey coach walking up and down the bench.”
This may not sound like everyone’s idea of a nice atmosphere in which to spend a Sunday afternoon, but when one is watching a hockey game on television it seems entirely appropriate. The bantering last Sunday began during the national anthem and went on from there. The goaltender for the Minnesota North Stars left his position on the blue line before the anthem was over and skated to his net. “Aw, ya commie,” said one guy. One particularly beat-up Minnesota player had adhesive bandages all around his lips, where he had apparently been cut in a previous game, but one guy said, “Looks like he found the wrong girl last night.”
