Fire Ryan Poles | Fire Ben Johnson

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.

I don’t have a whole lot of words to describe this season. It reached a point where I just didn’t care to watch. Other nights, I tried not to but it was so difficult to take my eyes off of them. How pitiful.

Just to think that at the start of the calendar year, the Bulls were a 1.5 games behind the Cavaliers for first place. Three months later, they were eliminated from just reaching the playoffs. That is about as putrid as it can get. To fall that far behind in just a short amount of time is amazing.

Let me defend my mission from years’ past to wanting Tom Thibodeau fired. That was still, the right decision. The Bulls may go on to win 50 games with that dumbass coaching, but it wouldn’t matter because everyone would still be hurt and they would just get eliminated in the first or second round anyway.

The Bulls have become a laughingstock. They are fucked as an organization from top to bottom. Fuck everyone from management, to coaches, trainers, doctors and of course, the players. The players are the ones on the court pissing all over themselves and not listening to the coaches. They really know how to piss off their fans. Sadly, when I mention a team pissing off their fans, I have to specify it’s the Bulls because there are other teams in Chicago that do the same thing.

Fuck this once proud but now PATHETIC franchise.

Some say the Cubs are the BEST team in baseball! This could be the year!!!

tick tock…tick tock…tick tock…tick tock…tick tock…tick tock…tick tock…tick tock…

The crew – Three years of attending Wrestlemania with these folks.

Well, I’ve arrived back to town. I went from sunny and 85 degrees to cloudy and snowy, 34 in Chicagoland. But, it’s great to be back home. Wrestlemania was fun, as always. Many folks who watched it on TV said it wasn’t that great. I’ll have to watch it later.

I’ve met so many great folks over the weekend. First, I want to give thanks the Justin LaBar and Josh Isenberg of WrestleZone for organizing another get-together. They’ve done this I believe, seven years in a row but this was my third one with those guys. It was a great time.

Now, I want to give a special thanks again to a random fan at the WrestleCon convention at the Hyatt Regency. I was trying to get tickets to meet The Iron Sheik, which has been a lifelong dream of mine. As I was walking to buy a ticket that was apparently, sold out, a random fan was walking out of there. Outside, he offered me his wristband for free. I thanked two or three times before going in. And because of that, this happened:

SHEIKY BABY!

How cool is that? I was also lucky enough to meet the living legend, Larry Zbyszko and Matt Hardy. Those two guys were very excited to be apart of the weekend and very genuine individuals. Here are some pictures of that as well as some from Sunday. Enjoy.

The main event features a two on one handicap match with J.R. and Bobby Ewing vs. Cliff Barnes.

All week, I’ve been randomly singing the “Dallas” theme song in my head. And speaking of that show, I want to give a big “fuck you” to TNT for cancelling the reboot of it after the third season. It was really the only show on that channel I enjoyed.

But anyway, I am off to Wrestlemania for the weekend. Friday, I am going to Axxess to meet some wrestlers and fans. Saturday, I will be doing some sight-seeing and going to The Hall of Fame ceremony. I am praying I have enough time to find some Southern bar skanks. I hear they’re fantastic. Sunday, of course, is the big day. For you WRASSLIN’ fans, feel free to add your thoughts on the show before or after.

Genre and I had a fun time in the city Saturday night. We didn’t let the Bulls piss all over our evening. We had some great food at The Squared Circle. We ended up heading to Jack and Ginger’s off Armitage where I ran into a couple people that I knew. A great night, indeed.

Next time Genre is back in town, there is no excuse for you bastards who didn’t make it. Let’s all figure something out when the time arrives.

It has been quite some time since I wrote about wrestling. But this was something that I planned on writing when the time came and now, it has.

March 23rd, 2001: This was the day that the World Wrestling Federation bought World Championship Wrestling from AOL-Time Warner. Just a year or two before this, Ted Turner had owned the company a good decade before merging his company with AOL. After Turner was no longer in charge, that began the downfall. I won’t discuss too much about what else went wrong during that time but more so, my personal views on this.

I am sure others out there in the wrestling world also coined the phrase, “The day wrestling died.” For me, I was a freshman in high school at the time. I knew at that time that this was a big deal because there was no longer competition. ECW had filed for bankruptcy and WCW hadn’t been relevant about two and a half years before this. I just remember going onto the computer with the dial-up internet to check the WWF website as I did on a nearly daily-basis. And the image with both the WWF and WCW Logo was on the front page with the word “purchases” in-between them. I couldn’t believe it. Storylines played out afterwards and the rest was history.

Looking back on that time, there wasn’t a better time to be a wrestling fan. Every week was just something different and exciting. I can remember racing to get home from somewhere just to catch Smackdown. On weekends, I stayed up late to catch the highlights of Raw on Shotgun Saturday Night/Jakked. That’s how it was for a good four years or so.

Now, every week is stale and it doesn’t seem to get better anytime soon. Most of the time, I set the DVR and fast forward through a third of the show. I am not a fan who screams for the same types of storylines 15 years ago. It doesn’t have to be that good and I don’t think it ever will be. That was truly, the greatest era in wrestling with two companies fighting for ratings at the same time every Monday Night. The product just needs to be less saturated with garbage storylines and less duration.

I compare those few years for wrestling fans to the 90’s Bulls. While I may still be a fan of both, many others don’t care for either anymore. Some people I know always talk about how they always use to watch wrestling but not anymore. Likewise for people who were Bulls fans. Myself, I am still watching both and next week, I am heading to Dallas for Wrestlemania. Something is wrong with me.

Petition to remove Kenny Albert from NBC

Well folks, it has come to this. The Blackhawks lost yet, another game with Kenny Albert announcing. That’s three in a row and three games the Blackhawks needed to try to win their division. And thanks to The Kiss of Death to Chicago sports, the Blackhawks are losing the chance to grab the division. As I have stated here numerous times, Albert announced all seven games in the 2014 Western Conference Final in which the Blackhawks lost to the Kings. Then last year, the Blackhawks found themselves down 3-2 with four of those games (three of them losses) being called by this weasel. Thankfully, NBC made the switch to have Emrick call Game Six and, what do you know? The Blackhawks win that game as well as the decisive Game Seven in Anaheim on their way to winning the Cup.

Without further ado, here is what I submitted online to NBC Sports:

My name is [name redacted] and I am a fan of some Chicago sports’ teams. I am writing to you because I have a complaint about announcer Kenny Albert.

For the last decade, Kenny Albert has called games involving teams that are from Chicago. With the Chicago Bears, most important games since 2007 have resulted in losses with Albert on the call.

The Blackhawks lost the Western Conference Final in 2014 with Albert announcing all seven games. Last year, the Blackhawks found themselves down 3-2 with Game Six at home. Albert announced four of the five games. Mike Emrick called Game Six in which, the Blackhawks won and likewise for Game Seven.

With this track record, Kenny Albert is the Kiss of Death to Chicago sports. I am tired of him announcing games involving teams from Chicago because they lose many of them, especially important ones.

Tonight, this was the tipping point. I am writing this to you on March, 20th. The Blackhawks have lost have lost their last three games on NBCSN with Kenny Albert announcing. As my proof above states, this has been a trend for the Blackhawks since 2014 in games he has called. While they have won some of those games, important ones like the last three and the last two Western Conference Final series are proof that they lose most of them. When Mike Emrick announces, the Blackhawks have a better chance of winning.

Please, I am begging whoever is in charge to please, release Kenny Albert from NBC Sports. I am already gathering a letter to Fox Sports as well to release Albert. He is bad luck and what I coin at my blog as “The Kiss of Death to Chicago sports”.

You have my email address and if someone could call me, please email back and I will reply with my phone number. I am a frustrated fan who has had it and I do not want the Chicago Blackhawks to lose their chance to repeat as Stanley Cup Champions because of Kenny Albert like they did in 2014. I have submitted evidence in this letter to prove that the Blackhawks lose many of their games with him on the call.

Thank you.

…long overdue, but it looks like Fro and I will meet in the city for an important confab on Saturday evening 3/26…you’re invited.