Fire Ryan Poles | Fire Ben Johnson

Oh, Nashville. Great city to visit, but horrible hockey fans in them (sorry if I offend someone).

Even though I am not really the biggest fan of the Penguins (I was pulling for the Senators), I had to do what was right and pull for them to beat the team that swept the Blackhawks two months ago. Call me a bitter man, but my reasons are warranted. And before I get to why fans of the Predators are annoying bastards, I will say the referees screwed them on two goals that could have won them the series. I don’t wish that on any team, but oh well.

Now, this is why I called:

First, these fans are the absolute worst. They heckle the goalie on the other team by chanting the name followed by a “You suck…it’s all your fault.” Good Lord. That’s atrocious. When it came to the Blackhawks, fans of the Canucks use to chant crap like that. Ask them how that turned out. In Game 6 of this series, they were chanting Matt Murray’s name even though he didn’t give up a goal. I guess it makes sense seeing as their hockey IQ is below average.

Next, copying traditions. For the last half century or whatever, the Red Wings have had a tradition of throwing an octopus onto the ice during playoff games. Now, I don’t like the Red Wings either, but at least I respect them. There’s a difference there. What do the “great” fans of Nashville do? They throw a catfish onto the ice. Wow. That is so awesome! Then, some moron tried throwing one onto the ice during Game 1 in Pittsburgh. He was promptly arrested. Stupidity should be a crime.

So, congratulations to Nashville Predators and and their “great” fan base consistent of country music singers who had no idea what hockey was until April. If I do go to Nashville for work next month, I’ll be glad to walk around with one of my Blackhawks’ shirts again.

I’m not panicking, as there’s a lot of baseball still to be played…but the 2017 Chicago Cubs are looking less and less like a serious WS contender.

And sadly, the only ones who can do anything about it are the greedy owners.

Today, the owners approved of making overtimes in the regular season only 10:00 rather than 15:00. So now, more ties would be likely to happen. Fact: Fans, for better or for worse, want to see a winner and a loser. Ties sometimes screw with playoff scenarios as well. Get ready for more shitty football.

The owners don’t give a shit what Goodell does to screw the game up because no matter what, this guy is the catalyst to filling their pockets and in return, they fill his. It’s crap.

Fact: The game of football is more dangerous with all of these rule changes than 20 years ago. Look how many more players are getting hurt because they have to play the game differently. All of the rule changes with how teams practice, hit and just running a play in general, are contributing to more injuries. We all know football is dangerous. That’s just the nature of the beast.

Meanwhile, nothing has been done to countless commercial breaks/timeouts or getting rid of Thursday Night Football games. If anybody wants to know another reason why players keep getting hurt, playing two games in four days will do that.

Logic doesn’t apply to the NFL.

It’s all yours, ladies and gentlemen.

I suppose there are some bright spots.

Heyward has improved at the plate and other bats are warming up. But last night’s bullpen meltdown at Fenway,  and Anderson’s “performance” tonite are another matter.

“With everything that happened this month and being on the road a lot, I’ll take what we did right now and get on back home and try to build upon it. There’s not a negative to be found for me.” — Maddon, looking at how the Cubs did in the first month of the season 

It’s a long season….but what do you think?

You didn’t think this could get any dumber. Well, it did.

Ryan Pace made the Bears even further away from a Super Bowl by trading away three draft picks just to move up ONE FUCKING SPOT in the draft to get Mitchell Trubisky. That’s right. ONE SPOT FROM NUMBER THREE TO NUMBER TWO.

He gave away a second and third round pick this year and a third round pick next year.

The Bears need every draft pick they have. There wasn’t a need to do this. New general manager of the 49ers, John Lynch, depantsed Pace. You would think that signing Glennon for the amount of money they gave him was insane. This tops it all.

This is why Soldier Field will be 50-75% full after the Bears start 0-3. I wish the fans would be smart and stay away the entire season. I want the season opener to be 40% full just to show these morons that we will not accept this abject failure of a franchise.

It’s so bad, it’s making people long for the days of Jerry Angelo or Phil Emery. And for you stat wizards out there, the Bears had much better records with those two at the helm than Pace and Fox have had during these two years.

It’s only going to get worse.

Shades of 2005 all over again. It goes like this: Bulls win the first two. Then, they proceed to lose the next four. You think every time that maybe it will be different.

You’re just fooling yourself. The same shit continues to happen such as shitty turnovers, bad shot selection, technical fouls, blaming referees, etc. It’s just a fucking joke.

Friday, the Celtics will put the Bulls and all of us out of our misery for yet, another season. By the end of next season, it will be 20 years since the Bulls last championship.

NBA Hell continues for our favorite basketball team.

Where is Captain Kirk when we need him?

“HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!”

And by the way, if you any of you have taken a look at the schedule for the Bears this upcoming season, you will see they will be lucky win three games.

Since 2013, it’s become routine that I write an article like this talking about how the Blackhawks are one loss away from elimination in the playoffs. I wish it were different. I wish the Blackhawks were up 2-1 or 3-0 as I type this. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

The Blackhawks are down 3-0 in this series against the Predators. It’s been frustrating. It’s been annoying. I am writing this just after 1:00 a.m. because I know I am not going to sleep much. This is what happens when I am pissed off.

The Blackhawks were up 2-0 in the 3rd of Game 3 when things just fell apart. Horrible bounces and inability to clear the puck gave the Predators two goals. That’s hockey. People want to talk about how other sports are random, hockey beats it all. This game is so fucked up and with all of the rule changes in the last decade, teams can come back in a hurry. That’s what happened in this game.

I am not going to go all meatball by saying the Blackhawks aren’t trying. No. These are the motherfucking Blackhawks that many of us loved since childhood. These are the mighty Blackhawks. This is the team that has spoiled us with three Stanley Cups since the start of this decade. They even had a chance for a fourth one in 2014. This team didn’t all of a sudden turn into a bunch of bums. It’s just how the game is played. The Blackhawks had a ton of breaks go their way in those Cup years. This year, it isn’t happening.

The last time the Blackhawks have been swept in a series was 15 years ago against the Joel Quenneville-coached Blues. Because this is hockey, the law of average says the Blackhawks will be swept again in due time and it just may be this Thursday.

One thing about these Blackhawk teams since the start of the decade: They don’t give up. In 2011, they were 3-0 to the Canucks and forced Game 7. Sure, it sucked that a shitty turnover in overtime lost that game. But they didn’t throw in the towel. 2014 was similar with them down 3-1 to the Kings in the Conference Final. Overtime got the best of them again, but as it went for 2011, they didn’t go down quietly. Let’s not forget 2013 when they were down 3-1 to the Red Wings. I didn’t declare the season over, but I didn’t feel all that great. They won three in a row and the series. We all know what happened after that.

Yeah, it sucks they keep getting down 3-0/3-1/3-2 in these series, but damn. I wish they would just sweep everybody en route to a Stanley Cup. That just doesn’t happen.

But, this one question remains:

Can Quenneville and his mighty Blackhawks pull off the biggest comeback of this decade by winning four in a row against the Predators?