Fire Ryan Poles | Fire Ben Johnson

Another person in sports has left us. I’ve lost count already this year.

This time, it was former Chicago Bear Bryan Robinson. And that name is familiar with a bunch of us.

In the 90’s, the Bears were awful. In fact, they’re still awful. It felt like a lifetime between victories against the Packers. Growing up in a town that was nearly split down the middle with Bears/Packers fans, it made it even worse.

The year was 1999. The Bears were so bad, God couldn’t even watch. Walter Payton had passed during the week before the game. The Bears went to Lambeau to play the Packers. The day before, there was a ceremony at Lambeau remembering Payton. As I mentioned in the previous thread with Gordie Howe and Blackhawks fans, I think Packers fans would say that the only Bear they could never hate would be Walter Payton. So needless to say, it was a very emotional time for both teams.

The game begins and the Bears, to everyone’s surprise, including themselves, are actually playing in a close game. A 13-year old me is watching this game in the living room. Looking back, the Bears actually being up on the Packers was so rare in my childhood, that I remember these games well. I just remember Jim Miller throwing interceptions in this game. Cade McNown had a knee injury early in the game. As I type this, my eyes are ready to bleed just reminiscing about Cade McNown doing some type of bootleg. Fuck.

Moving on, the Bears take the lead in the 3rd quarter on a Bobby Engram touchdown thrown from Miller. I just researched the box score. Miller threw three interceptions in this game. In the 4th quarter, Chris fucking Boniol missed a field goal that would have put the Bears up 17-13 with just under 6:00 minutes to go. So Brett Favre, who was sending dick pictures with Polaroids to reporters during this time due to cell phone cameras not yet being invented, drove the Packers down the field in typical Brett Favre fashion. As a Bears fan, I am sure everyone was thinking, “not this again”.

Favre takes the Packers down to around the 10-yard line with just a few seconds to go. Ryan Longwell, who was a pretty damn good kicker, just had to make a chip shot right in the middle of the field for the win. On this day, the Bears pulled one out of their asses thanks to one man: Bryan Robinson.

Bryan, thank you for this memory.

If you are a Blackhawks fan, this is probably the only Red Wing you could never hate, even if you tried.

Well, it became a little interesting, but the Earth’s axis is finally rotating back to normal. The St. Louis Blues have been eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Sharks disposed of them in six games and some of those games weren’t even close. The Blues were full of players that probably nobody outside of their fan base likes. All of those players can now pick fights on the golf course with others now that they are no longer playing hockey until September.

This post is very similar to one I wrote in 2011 after the Vancouver Canucks pissed all over themselves against the Bruins in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final.

Fuck St. Louis and their shitty fans. They deserve that team. Their football team, that wasn’t their football team to begin with, left town. They haven’t had a basketball franchise since Gerald Ford was president. It’s no wonder nobody wants to be there. It is one the shittiest cities in America. In fact, it’s probably one of the shittiest cities in the world.

And sure, maybe I am a bit frustrated that the Blackhawks couldn’t get their fourth Cup in my lifetime because they were eliminated in seven by these turds last month. Whenever the Blackhawks do lose, at least I can tell myself: “Hey. At least I am not from St. Louis”.

Fans of St. Louis: If you are reading this, oh, fuck. Who am I kidding? You idiots can’t read.

Congratulations to the San Jose Sharks. I don’t have any beef with the remaining teams, but it would be nice to see the Sharks win because it would be their first Cup in franchise history. Knowing how it felt for the first 24 years of my life thinking the Blackhawks would never win really sucks. As I’ve said before on here, I am so lucky and happy to have seen my team win on three different occasions. The Lightning and Penguins have won Cups. I want San Jose to win one.

From Wikipedia:

Ted Phillips is an American businessman and the President and CEO of the National Football League’s Chicago Bears and has been a part of the organization since 1984 (1983 according to the bottom of the page). He is only the fourth president of the 90-year-old organization, the others being Michael McCaskey, George Halas Jr., and “Papa Bear” George Halas. Phillips is one of only two individuals in the NFL to serve on both the NFL Working Club Executive committee and the NFL Senior Club Executive committee, whose mission is to analyze both the financial and football operations aspects of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Wow. This asshole has been working for this franchise for 33 years? The last 17 has been as the president. I fucking hate this dis-organization.

Happy Friday.

Your thoughts on the Bears’ draft picks are welcome. And if someone can tell me why the Bears cut Matt Slauson, feel free. In a time where the Bears need as many lineman as possible, they get rid of someone who can still play another year or two.

List of draft picks:

Leonard Floyd – Linebacker (Georgia)

Cody Whitehair (by cracky) – Offensive lineman (Kansas State)

Jonathan Bullard – Defensive end (Florida)

Nick Kwiatkowski – Linebacker (West Virginia)

Deon Bush (by cracky) – Safety (Miami)

Deiondre Hall – Cornerback/Safety (Northern Iowa)

Jordan Howard – Running back (Indiana)

DeAndre Houston-Carson – Safety (William & Mary)

Daniel Braverman – Wide receiver (Western Michigan)

I am a bit late to the party, but I just had to chime in with the news that the Timberwolves decided that they wanted to be the next franchise that ThomASS will end up ruining.

I am not sure if other franchises see what goes on in Chicago with our sports teams, because once teams here fire someone, another team is just waiting in line to give them a job. We’ve seen it with the likes of Lovie Smith and Marc Trestman. Does anybody else learn? If it doesn’t work here, it probably won’t work somewhere else.

I can just see it happening right now. It’s not a matter of if, but when, injuries will pile up for the Timberwolves. I don’t know many people are fans of that team, but I feel bad for them. The Timberwolves have three up and coming starts in Zach Levine, Andrew Wiggins and Karl Anthony-Towns. I believe Anthony-Towns would have been a top-ten player in the NBA but now, not likely. ThomASS will drive all three of those guys and others into the ground.

We’ve seen it here. I have never really been a Joakim Noah fan, but his career was toast before ThomASS came into the fold. Now, he’s more than finished. And do we really have to go in-depth with Derrick Rose? The guy was an idiot before all of the injuries but now, he’s damaged goods. He will be forever known as Grant Hill, minus the brain.

Minnesota, Tom Thibodeau is all yours. Enjoy being like the Bulls for the next decade: Irrelevant.

Since the Blackhawks are now done, we need to quickly shift gears to football. The Bears are on the clock this Thursday with the 11th pick. This year, the Bears have nine draft picks, which is quite a bit. With those many picks, there are zero excuses to not find someone who can help right away. I know it’s the NFL and there are hit and misses, the Bears need to hit big this year.

I have a poll set up below for what you feel the Bears need to do first. Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments’ section.

The Blackhawks are once again, facing elimination. I knew this was going to be a tough series but the way the Blackhawks are losing these games is just amazing. The first game, it’s a deflection off of Trevor vanRiemsdyk. The third game, more deflections that result in goals. This last game, it’s the Blackhawks committing penalties and resulting in goals.

Nobody expected this to be easy. I’ve said this many times over these last few years that the hardest thing to do in sports is winning the Stanley Cup. Doing it again the following year seems to be above and beyond that. It’s frustrating to see how the Blackhawks have been playing. And their frustrations are showing on the ice with guys like Corey Crawford and Andrew Shaw trying to fire up the team and fans by fighting. It obviously didn’t work in Game 4.

So, here we are with the Blackhawks down 3-1. They’ve came back before. We’ve all seen it. All of the other teams I cheer for in sports, once they are down, it’s over. Not the Blackhawks. They’ve proved over and over again that nothing is for sure. It’s too late to complain about what has went wrong with this team all season and in this series.

I am just sitting here praying to God that the Blackhawks win three in a row and advance to the second round.

On Wednesday, the Blackhawks will start the playoffs against the Blues in St. Louis. No team has repeated as Stanley Cup Champions in 18 years (1998 Wings). This year, the road will seem to be tougher with injuries and less help on defense for the Blackhawks. Corey Crawford was out the last three weeks until playing in the season-finale on Saturday. I think a goal or two in that game wasn’t really on him, but at least he had some type of tune-up.

The Blackhawks have played really well at times and not much at other times. Like in past years where they won the Cup, there was a stretch in the last few months of the season where they didn’t play their best. They had a 12-game winning streak that began in December and stretched into January. They moved up the standings and into first place for a bit. They still had a chance to win the division or get into second place to host the first round, but lost the last two games in overtime.

Duncan Keith is still suspended and will be ready to play come Game 2 of the series. The depth on defense is slim. But if anyone can get the most out of his players, it’s Joel Quennville. He has seemed to be a magician in these situations. There are injuries, as mentioned with Crawford, that are lingering with some players. But Qunneville is the guy who has the ability to right the ship. He will have his team ready to go.