Combining Interests: Knitting and Crochet with Hockey

The obvious tie between hockey and knitting and crochet is that hockey sweaters were originally knit wool sweaters, and instead of buying replica sweaters from a store many mothers knitted them for their children. I saw wool sweaters for every Original 6 team and several more Blackhawks ones at the Blackhawks Convention, and they were clearly wool hockey sweaters.

Another less obvious connection is goalies wearing toques. A recent example of a goalie wearing a toque is Jonathan Bernier at the 2014 Winter Classic, wearing a machine knit team toque over his mask. Goalies wearing toques had a much earlier start, out of practicality. Jacques Plante wore hand knitted toques most of his career, starting from when he was a boy playing pond hockey and continuing until he made the NHL. The then Canadiens head coach banned his toques because they were not official uniform. Plante continued to knit throughout the rest of his life even though he was banned from wearing toques during games and practices.

Québec Citadelles team photo Plante in hand knit toque

Remembering Our History

The Hockey Hall of Fame induction combined with Jean Béliveau's death and Gordie Howe's illness got me thinking about remembering our collective history. Earlier this season, I saw a post on Reddit asking who Chris Chelios was. The poster went on to explain that said poster had read about Dean Chelios's signing with the ECHL's Indy Fuel, heard his dad was a former Blackhawk and wanted to know about him.

If self proclaimed diehard fans do not know about 20 years ago's captain, what other holes in their hockey knowledge are there?

I've gone to several autograph signings, at the Blackhawks Convention, at the Chicago Auto Show and at various other locations.

It is always the same story, players with retired numbers (Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita, Tony Esposito, Pierre Pilote and Denis Savard in my personal experience) draw huge crowds, as do any current players. However, other former players attract almost no one. I have met Jack O'Callahan, Murray Bannerman, Darren Pang, Troy Murray, Eddie Olczyk and Steve Konroyd, among others, with little to no line.

It appears that when new Hawks fans join the fandom, they learn the names of current players and the names of players with banners in the rafters. The 1970s-2000s seem to be the eras of Hawks history with the least fan knowledge.

Hopefully, hockey fans, especially fans of teams like the Hawks and the Kings with rapidly expanding fanbases, will take the time to educate new fans. Regarding the question posed on Reddit, fans were quick to educate the self-proclaimed diehard fan that Chris Chelios was a long serving Blackhawks captain and one of the greatest American-born defensemen.

Pat Foley and Dominik Hašek: Blackhawks in the Hockey Hall of Fame Class of 2014

Pat Foley has been the voice of the Blackhawks for over 30 years, starting on WBBM 780 and continuing on whatever radio or television station (currently WGNTV and CSN-Chicago) has carried Blackhawks. When Foley graduated from college, he knew he wanted to go into sports broadcasting but did not have a job--he had worked for his school radio station. As it so happened the Wirtz family got their cars serviced at Foley Buick, owned by Pat's father. One day Michael Wirtz brought his car in for service and when he picked it up he found a tape of Pat's play by play left in the tape deck, he was sufficiently impressed and the Blackhawks hired a young, unknown broadcaster by the name of Pat Foley to do their radio play by play.

Foley quickly became a mainstay behind the Blackhawks mic, one of his earliest signature calls was BAAAANERMAN, which got its start in the 1985 Western Conference Finals between the Blackhawks and the Edmonton Oilers. He was the regular broadcaster until 2006, when Bill Wirtz decided to terminate his contract.

For two seasons, Foley did play by play for the Chicago Wolves, a local AHL team. After Rocky Wirtz became Blackhawks President after his father's passing, he brought back in Pat Foley, to do the television broadcasts alongside former Blackhawk Eddie Olczyk. Since 2008, Pat and Eddie have broadcast Blackhawks games on both WGNTV and CSN-Chicago. Several more signature calls have been added to Foley's repertoire, "Niemi says no" from the 2010 Western Conference Finals and "GREAT SAVE BY CRAWFORD" said on numerous occasions 2010-present are two of the most notable.

Dominik Hašek began his NHL career as a member of the Chicago Blackhawks, including action in the 1992 Stanley Cup Finals against the Pittsburgh Penguins. After Hašek drew attention for his play in the Stanley Cup Finals, Ed Belfour, the Blackhawks established starting goalie, felt his minutes were in jeopardy and told Blackhawks management, he goes or I go.

Hašek was traded to the Buffalo Sabres, where he would spend the majority of his career. In 1998, Hašek met fellow Hall of Fame goalie, Canada's Patrick Roy, in the Olympic semifinals. Hašek's Czechs beat Roy's Canadians in a shootout to advance to the gold medal game, where the Czechs would win their only hockey gold to date.

In 1999, Hašek met his former partner, Ed Belfour, who had since gone to the Dallas Stars, in the Stanley Cup Finals. Like with winning the Blackhawks starting job in 1992, Belfour beat Hašek, who saw his Cup hopes crushed in the Finals once again.

Hašek finally won the Stanley Cup as a member of the 2002 and 2008 Detroit Red Wings, alongside former Blackhawks teammate Chris Chelios, who had been traded to the rival Red Wings after a falling out with Blackhawks management. Hašek became the first European-trained starting goalie to win the Stanley Cup and second European starting goalie to win the Stanley Cup (after Blackhawks' 1934 goalie--Charlie Gardiner).

You are not a NHL GM

In 2010, one of the many decisions Stan Bowman made when faced with a cap crunch was to trade goaltender Antti Niemi to San Jose, allowing him to match San Jose's offer sheet on RFA defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson.

Fans hated that decision, Niemi had just won the Stanley Cup and was a large factor in the Blackhawks sweep of the San Jose Sharks in the Western Conference Final, while Hjalmarsson was young and unproven. Also, the Blackhawks then needed to call up the unproven Corey Crawford from Rockford to take Niemi's roster spot.

Fast forward to 2014, the Sharks are struggling and Alex Stalock might have stolen Niemi's roster spot. Hjalmarsson added a second Stanley Cup in 2013 and an Olympic Silver in 2014 and ranks 30th in franchise points by a defenseman (as of 11/11/14). The unproven Crawford now ranks 5th in franchise wins, behind Tony Esposito, Glenn Hall, Ed Belfour and Jocelyn Thibault. Crawford won the Jennings Trophy and Stanley Cup in 2013, Conn Smythe Winner Patrick Kane said Crawford deserved the award more than he did and Crawford was invited to Team Canada's Olympic training camp (he was cut from the final roster).

If Stan Bowman had done what the fans had wanted in 2010, the Stanley Cup and Jennings Trophy would not have made their way to West Madison in 2013. Hjalmarsson-Oduya would not exist, and therefore Sweden's Olympic Silver would have been far less likely. Crawford would have been sent somewhere else or still be in Rockford and therefore the Blackhawks would not have someone rapidly ascending the franchise wins list.

Stan Bowman clearly knew what he was doing and the armchair GMs were wrong. You are not an NHL GM, you do not know better than them.

A Look at Goaltending Statistics

With Corey Crawford passing Murray Bannerman for 5th all time in Franchise Wins, there has been a lot of talk on where he ranks among goaltending greats. As of 10/16/2014, the Blackhawks leaders in various statistical categories (100+ GP) are as follows:

Wins:
1. Tony Esposito 418
2. Glenn Hall 275
3. Ed Belfour 201
4. Jocelyn Thibault 137
5. Corey Crawford 117
6. Murray Bannerman 116
7. Mike Karakas 114
8. Charlie Gardiner 112

Win Percentage:
1. Corey Crawford 54.7%
2. Ed Belfour 48.4%
3. Tony Esposito 47.9%
4. Denis DeJordy 45.5%
5. Glenn Hall 44.5%
6. Nikolai Khabibulin 44.2%

GAA:
1. Charlie Gardiner 2.02
2. Corey Crawford 2.35
3. Jeff Hackett 2.45
4. Glenn Hall 2.60
5. Jocelyn Thibault 2.63
6. Ed Belfour 2.65

Corey Crawford is a relatively young goalie, only in his 5th season and to be ranked in all statistical categories as one of the leaders is quite an accomplishment. Glenn Hall, Charlie Gardiner and Mike Karakas all won the Stanley Cup as Blackhawks (as did Crawford), Tony Esposito and Ed Belfour lost in the Stanley Cup Finals and Murray Bannerman lost in the Western Conference Finals to the dynasty Edmonton Oilers. I would not be surprised if we eventually see #50 join #1 and #35 in the United Center rafters and/or Corey Crawford join Esposito, Hall, Belfour and Gardiner in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Hockey: not just for able-bodied white men

In 2013, we saw PK Subban win the Norris Trophy for best defenseman and the Chicago Blackhawks, with a roster including Johnny Oduya, Jamal Mayers, Ray Emery and Brandon Saad, win the Stanley Cup. In 2014, we learned that both Olympic Gold Medalist goalies, Carey Price (men's) and Shannon Szabados (women's) were teammates on the Tri-Cities Americans. Also in 2014, the Olympic Men's Hockey medalists were the most diverse ever, with Carey Price and PK Subban winning gold and Johnny Oduya silver. Another 2014 milestone is NBC broadcasting all three gold medal games, men's, women's and sledge.

Those 2013 and 2014 milestones were a long time coming, in 1958 Willie O'Ree broke the NHL color barrier, in 1984 Grant Fuhr won the first of his five Stanely Cups, and in doing so, became the first black Cup winner. When Jarome Iginla was on Canada's 2002 Gold Medal team, he became the first black Winter Olympic Gold Medalist.

As for women's hockey, Isobel Stanley, Lord Stanley's daughter, was playing hockey when he donated the Stanley Cup in 1893, Manon Rhéaume went pro in the early 1990s and it has been an Olympic sport since 1998.

Sledge hockey was is the newest variety of hockey, it was invented in the 1960s by two Swedish men with disabilities who wanted to play hockey and has been a paralympic sport since 1994.

I, personally, enjoy all aspects of the game of hockey and love seeing it grow and diversify. If I had to pick a favorite Team Canada goalie, the decision between Carey Price, Shannon Szabados and Corbin Watson, all three are young, talented goalies I will enjoy watching for years to come.

Appreciating our Past

I've been at least actively lurking in the hockey fan community for a while. Countless times I've seen people who seem to have no knowledge of hockey's past.

Suggesting that Martin Brodeur is the greatest goalie of all time when even greatest of his era (Patrick Roy, Dominik Hasek, etc) is up for debate. Let alone greatest of all time where he'd be going head to head with the likes of Tony Esposito, Glenn Hall, Jacques Plante, Georges Vézina, and many others.

Additionally, I've seen people who appear to believe that women's hockey did not exist before Manon Rhéaume's NHL debut in 1993 or women's hockey being added to the Olympics in 1998. Most hockey fans know who Lord Stanley was, however, far fewer realize that his daughter, Isobel, was a hockey player and played alongside her brothers.

The documented history of hockey goes back to the 1890s, please, hockey fans, take the time to learn some of it, at least an overview of the almost 100 year history of the NHL.