Blackhawks Cup talk is fools gold, drop the puke and just play

If the Blackhawks were more interested in winning than marketing, they would impose a ban on anyone in their organization admitting or hinting at championship aspirations. I'm willing to share royalty rights for SHUT UP ALREADY, ALL YOU DUMB BASTARDS.

It'd look nice hanging from the 300 level with the Indian giving you the fish eye.

After 48 years of dream scenarios being as lucid as a LSD hallucination, except for the odd year or two, to lend an ounce of credence to a Cup being likely or probable or possible in Chicago is simply playing with fools gold.

In seven months, I also could tell you in a preview that I will have won the lottery, been recognized for my hidden literary skills, buried my enemies, and convinced my wife that I require a 21-year-old, hot-looking nanny to brush up on my French. But 60 years on this earth have convinced me to shut up already, you dumb bastard.

"If anything else, it just allows us to play and not worry," Detroit winger Kirk Maltby said about the Wings being doubted by some national hockey experts. "We put enough pressure on ourselves knowing what the expectations are around here.

"If the outside hockey world wants to write us off or knock us down, that's better for us. We will just worry about what we can do.

"We know we will have another opportunity to be there at the end. If others don't believe it, so be it. It won't be the first time we've proved them wrong."

If the common sense reasoning by Babcock and Maltby doesn't scare the hell out of Blackhawk fans, then you're too ignorant to be worth yelling at, drunk or sober. These guys think as well as they play.

Detroit is dangerously inside the Blackhawks' heads as insidiously as that alien was writhing and sloshing inside Sigourney Weaver. The Hawks have to find a way to beat them mentally and physically.

That one goal should be plenty to occupy their time until April and their supposed coronation march.

"Any time you finish in the top two in the league like we have, top four, year after year, there's really only one direction to go," Babcock boasted in the nicest way possible. "But we've done a good job of maintaining year after year...I don't think we're going away, but only time will tell."

The Blackhawks have yet to show they can maintain anything except a summer news cycle with off-ice follies. They have made one solid postseason run. Let me repeat--one. And that has led to cries from their locker room by Patrick Kane of "Cup or bust" and visions of glory from Hither and Yon, who might also be in the goalie race.

Since Kane has been around just 20 of the 48-year championship drought in Chicago, I guess we can excuse his excessive exuberance, as he long as he learns he should shoot the puck more than his mouth. Less passing, more shooting, and he should score 45 to 50 goals.

Here's another off-ice reason to separate Detroit and the Blackhawks. Newspaper writers who cover the Red Wings have been actually in Sweden getting first-hand info, while some of the Blackhawks writers are chained to their desk or La-Z-Boy in Chicago, forced to receive fake postcards from players rubbing it in by telling them what was on the menu last night and adding how this team is so busy kissing each other it's a love-in.

I assume they'll stay out of jackpots that way by not kissing Finland's finest frauleins or fillies or whatever they're called. Doesn't sound like any hockey team I covered, but times change, I guess. One thing doesn't.

Hockey still isn't considered a real sport in Chicago.

With bankruptcy in vogue in the print business, some editors would rather pay for Ask Amy to write some more column postcards herself from Finland to tell us what it's like to spend a week there as a hooker rather than lay down some hard cash for on-sight coverage of hooks and slashes.

Rather than talk the usual about the Hawks' strengths and weaknesses, and there are plenty of both, I want to continue to scare you by listening some more to the Red Wings, who just never once got around to telling the Detroit News what they ate for dinner.

"I think we are going to be a really, really good hockey team," Tomas Holmstrom said. "You can't think it's going to just go by itself. You have to work hard for success."

The Detroit News writes: "The defense, led by six-time Norris Trophy winner Nicklas Lidsrom and Brian Rafalski, should be stronger for having rookie Jonathan Ericsson for a full season. He emerged as a reliable force on the blue line in the playoffs.

"The Wings' strength still lies in their depth, four strong lines and arguably the best defensive core in the league."

Ah, not everyone thinks the Wings got weaker,even losing Marian Hossa to the Hawks. Maybe their hometown paper, but maybe they have a point.

"We lost three guys who produced a lot of points," Henrik Zetterberg said. "But the good thing with this organization is they always find guys to replace them. I don't think there will be any problem with our production."

The consensus is the Blackhawks have enough offense to overcome a lack of muscle on defense and some possible goaltending inconsistencies. Maltby said the Wings relied on offense last regular season too much. Could the Hawks be saying that a year from now?

"Maybe we relied on our offense too much," Maltby said of the regular season. "We learned that in the playoffs last year."

The Hawks easily could outscore the Wings this season. But can they out-play them? Can they play better defense?

Even if they can, there's a few other strong teams to get past. The 1990-91 Hawks won the NHL President's Trophy with a 49-23-8 record (28-8-4 at home) and lost to Minnesota in the first round of the playoffs.

Let's keep our eye on the next goal--and that's not the Stanley Cup.

It's the Florida Panthers. Start small, stay focused and shut up about a championship. You will win nothing by hallucinating.

Even grumpy old men have hopes. They just know it's rare to see them come true. Until they do, keep your dreams to yourself. You might end up rooming with Milton Bradley, you know.