The Power of Sports

Forget if you can that the Blackhawks with their 12-24 record risk entering into the big-loser zone currently occupied by the Bears and White Sox. What they did New Year’s Eve is worth repeating. No, not losing 6-2 to the Blues, but playing in Wrigley Field and having players take the “L” as a group to the game—now, that was something. And walking from the Addison Red Line station to the ballpark to the accompaniment of bagpipes. Something, again. Despite what the Bears would have you believe, an indoor stadium for them would generate just one Super Bowl. Otherwise, show me a Northern venue that’s hosted multiple times. Sorry, the four games held in and around Detroit and Minneapolis all took place at different facilities, over the course of four decades. Blame it on the ice and cold. But you can’t play hockey without ice, and ice means cold, and cold means outdoors, or making the indoors cold enough to support ice. The idea of a “winter classic” NHL game was pure genius. I mean, Wrigley Field and Fenway Park. You can’t beat the location, even in the dead of winter. Something about a line of players carrying their skates and sticks along Waveland Avenue with the bagpipes piping goes beyond the commerce of professional sports. This is what makes a city a city. More, please, starting with the Crosstown Series in May and July.