Blackhawks' laid-back approach to news working swell

OK, so I understand the Blackhawks have declared a news blackout for the present. Must be nice to decide you've created enough news for now, take a few weeks off. Gets old seeing the product in print and broadcast all the time.

But could somebody explain to me how Comcast SportsNet could interview coach Joel Quenneville for Wednesday night's telecast and not ask him about possible trade talks between the Hawks and Ottawa for Dany Heatley?

There's this pretty sizeable country to the north called Canada, eh, where the Blackhawks and Heatley have been sharing cozy headline space. But here, it's barely been mentioned outside of the blogs, and we all know those guys are nuts.

Quenneville probably would have had a non-answer to Comcast. But so what? The simple idea of reporting and asking a variety of questions is to uncover a nugget of news, not letting Quenneville simply say that, sure, getting Martin Havlat re-signed would be swell.

If general manager Dale Tallon isn't interested in Heatley, fine. He still needs to tell his fans why. Now. Not next month at the fan convention. Toronto general manager Brian Burke just about labelled Heatley as a bum in his press conference Wednesday, adding that players asking to be traded the way Heatley did can kiss his ass and he wants no part of him.

Now that's a general manager. Of course, hockey is important in Toronto and the media makes them answer questions all the time, not letting teams choose when to take weeks off.

In no other major sport in this town would a team possibly be pursuing a player of Heatley's caliber and have nothing asked or said about it. Maybe that's why a lot of people don't think hockey is a major sport in Chicago and the Blackhawks are hurting themselves by playing this losing game.