The Chicago Blackhawks Are Bad

After two consecutive playoff oustings, you'd think it would be difficult to find a Vancouver Canucks fan who has anything but ill will for the Chicago Blackhawks. Unfortunately, this isn't the case, as some people think the Blackhawks are all right. Yes, some people have a hard time hating a team with plenty of ties to the West Coast. Some people watched Jonathan Toews lead Canada to an Olympic gold medal, and they think he's A-okay. And some people simply have the Blackhawks confused with other things. Good things. Things for which they feel fondness.

It's time to clear this up once and for all. People, hear me: the Chicago Blackhawks are bad. BAD. If you think they are good, you obviously have them confused with something else. That thing cannot possibly be the Blackhawks, because the Blackhawks are bad.

You may be thinking of Black Hawk, the Lakota artist whose 76 colour drawings are a part of Native American ledger art history. Black Hawk is admirable and sympathetic, especially since he was killed in the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890. If you feel admiration and sympathy, you're likely thinking of Black Hawk. You couldn't possibly be thinking of the Chicago Blackhawks, who are neither admirable nor sympathetic. They are the worst kind of bad. They're named after atrocities.

Consider the Black Hawk Purchase, a land acquisition made in what is now Iowa. This purchase came on the heels of the Black Hawk War, during which Sauk chief Black Hawk was taken prisoner. It was during Black Hawk's captivity that the land was sold, so one would assume he had little bargaining power. He also didn't get a fair shake from historians, who tell us that his motives for waging this dispute were "ambiguous," although there's hardly much ambiguity about defending one's property.

Leave it to the white man to extort land and distort history, right? Well, you know who has a lot of white men? The Chicago Blackhawks, who have compounded Black Hawk's humiliation by stealing his name. You know what's not ambiguous? The badness of the Chicago Blackhawks.

Still think the Blackhawks are good? You must be confused. Maybe you're thinking of Black Hawk Down, the Ridley Scott film about a fallen Black Hawk helicopter. Rotten Tomatoes tells us that 77% of critics felt this film was "fresh". However, this film was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and stars Josh Hartnett. Here's another film on which they collaborated: Pearl Harbour. That film was historically bad. Also bad? The Chicago Blackhawks, who, sources say, knew about the plan to bomb Pearl Harbour and didn't tell anybody.

Okay, that's not true. But that doesn't make them any less bad. They're quite bad.

If you think the Blackhawks are good, you're probably thinking of the Atlanta Blackhawks, the San Francisco Bay Blackhawks, the Waterloo Blackhawks, the Iowa Blackhawks or the Plattling Black Hawks. What do all these teams have in common? If you think it's their nickname, you're wrong. It's the fact that they are all less bad than the Chicago Blackhawks.

You may be thinking of Nighthawks, the classic Edward Hopper painting. Makes sense. It's located at the Art Institute of Chicago, which, like the Blackhawks, is in Chicago, but, unlike the Blackhawks, is good. The Blackhawks are bad, like the Great Chicago Fire, which destroyed the Art Institute's original building in 1871. Were the Chicago Blackhawks involved? Perhaps; they're bad. Are they arsonists? They've never gone record saying they're not.

If you still think the Blackhawks are good, it's possible you're confusing them with some other kind of hawk. Kitty Hawk, perhaps? That North Carolina city is near where the Wright brothers first flew airplanes. That was good, but do you know who later flew airplanes? Terrorists, who are bad. And don't think I'm actively trying to get you to associate the Chicago Blackhawks with terrorism, but they did hold a public demonstration of some sort in the streets of Chicago last July. Was it a terrorist rally? We simply don't know.

You may also be thinking of Nighthawks at the Diner, the classic Tom Waits album based on Edward Hopper's painting. Tom Waits is good. Unfortunately, whenever you think of early period Tom Waits, you run the risk of thinking about Billy Joel, to whom Waits was compared in the late seventies. Billy Joel is bad. What do Billy Joel and the Chicago Blackhawks have in common? No redeeming qualities.

I could go on. It's also possible you're thinking of blackjack, Jack Black, backhoes, backlogs, backrubs, black hats, black cats, back catalogs, black ops, black cod, black hogs, hockey, Hawkeye, bedrock, Beck, or Black Bond Books. Frankly, you sound confused, so here's a simple maxim to get you through: whatever you're thinking of, it's better than the Chicago Blackhawks.

In closing, the Chicago Blackhawks are bad.