Sodboy13

Yeah, that's what I thought they should do. But it doesn't matter what I think, because the Blackhawks' approach has been 100% effective. Trot him out for 10 minutes of opaque awkwardness in South Bend, and then, literally, before he's even walked out of the room, press the mental reset button, tell the assembled that it's all about hockey now, and act like absolutely nothing's going on.

Sure, there's been strident criticism from outside voices, but they don't matter. Kane's been front-and-center for PR appearances, under the spotlight hooking up the banner, and modeling new merchandise in an online campaign for the team store. The team isn't losing a dime or a fraction of a ratings point - they might actually get more money from those who think that fifty thousand Kane jerseys can't be wrong - and all they had to do was let him say he didn't do it, then act like all that matters is that he said didn't do it.

Personally, I'm not as invested in Hawks games this season, and I genuinely don't like watching Patrick Kane score and celebrate. And hey, he's been doing plenty of that early, and could be the NHL's Player of the Month. And if he is, the league will announce it with the same amount of coverage and celebratory language they would for any other player.

But, like I said, whether I think that Patrick Kane probably raped a woman and whether the Blackhawks handled their response poorly does not matter at all. Rapist on the team or not, I'm never spending 4 or 5 figures on season tickets. I'm never dropping $150 a night on parking and concessions at United Center. And even if I don't watch Hawks games as much, Rocky's still getting a chunk of my cable bill from the team's deal with Comcast, and the league's deal with NBC. At some point this year or next, the Erie County DA's office will announce charges won't be pursued, there will be two, maybe three days of people talking about it, the outrage ouroboros will fade away from the view of most people, and, barring further, worse things (or maybe even including them), the entire crapshow will forever be referred to only as Patrick Kane's Occasional Off-The-Ice Issues. Go Hawks.

I guess Aurelio's is fairly average as far as thin crust goes, but I have an emotional connection to it, having lived near the original in Homewood and eaten it more than any other pizza. Plus, I like green peppers on mine, and Aurelio's parboils or sautees theirs before baking the pizza, which is so much better than raw, crunchy peppers.

As far as the local stands go, I grew up in a town with a large Italian community, so I always had a couple places in town that made a great beef, plus pepper & egg sandwiches on Fridays. The "Combo" (an Italian beef with an Italian sausage link, for the uninitiated) is fairly standard practice, but one place had the "Whopper," which was an Italian sausage and meatball sandwich with marinara, mozzarella, and peppers. Mercy.

Momentarily On-Topic: Congrats to Patrick Kane on his first road game without rape chants from the crowd. We're about 85% of the way to collectively completely forgetting anything ever happened or how the Blackhawks handled it.

As for deep dish, I agree with Gino's over Giordano's, but I've never had Malnati's. But I'm not huge on deep dish, so whatever.

How have you not had Lou Malnati's? Do they not have locations south of Roosevelt? Weird. Order a thin-crust sausage pizza, it's the best.

It seems like they're just starting to expand into the southwest suburbs and western ones south of I-88. I never had Lou's growing up; it simply wasn't around. I've always thought of deep dish being more of a city proper/North Side thing.

http://www.loumalnatis.com/locations

By the way, I had dinner at Flo & Santo's last night, and - worlds collide - had their Italian Beef pizza. Get thee to the South Loop and do it.

Lou Malnati's > Gino's East > Giordano's

I think we'd get along very well in real life...

Buy you a beer at Kuma's sometime.

Al's Beef is probably better than Portillo's, as far as the Italian Beef chain hierarchy goes. (And for reference, the deep-dish pizza chain hierarchy is Lou Malnati's > Gino's East > Giordano's, though if you're in town and are interested in deep-dish, spring for the cab fare and go to Pequod's, because you deserve to live, man.) That said, I'm not close to an Al's now, so I go to Portillo's, and it's a perfectly good beef sandwich. There is a local place 4 blocks from my house, but it's 10 bucks for a beef and a small fry there, and it sure as hell isn't that much better than Portillo's.

Wherever you go for your beef, though, well-dipped, sweet peppers, and hot giardeniera is your path to enlightenment.

- - -

Now, in regard to 3-on-3, I watched the end of Sens-Leafs Saturday night, and that OT opened up with two solid minutes of dick twiddling. Yes, I know, it's shocking that a team who hired Lamoriello and Lemaire in the offseason would be party to a dull, lifeless display of hockey. After that, things opened up, probably because Babcock doesn't have the talent or reps yet to get his system fully in place. But I could see where this is going, and where every overtime format will continue to go until the NHL addresses the real problem, which is the format of the standings, not the overtime.

I trust we're all blasting "Let Me Clear My Throat" with the Sabres goal horn in our respective offices as much as possible.

Trust me, Chicago Wolves fans have adjusted.

It took about 3 days from the initial reports of allegations for Wrigleyville's t-shirt vendors to start selling "Kaner Made Me Do It" shirts. Still probably not in the Top 5 for offensive shirts in their current selection, though!

I'd be interested in trying a southwestern take on poutine. Not a big fan of the Quebecois original. I'm ambivalent to french fries and I hate gravy.

How about Korean? Check out the kimchi fries.

http://www.bngrill.com/

Man, Dean "The Real Victim Here" Lombardi is just poo on a plate.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/kings/la-sp-sn-kings-settlement-mike-richards-termination-20151009-story.html

I mean, I'm not surprised Patrick Kane didn't hear someone shouting "no" at him repeatedly.

Of all the things to rip off, Ogden went with the Anaheim Ducks' font?

I was watching Canucks-Flames, and coming out of the break, they had their sideline reporter talking up Brandon Prust (over "highlights" of a fight with Freaking Bollig), and talking about how he's "mentoring" younger hockey players to be, I dunno, really terrible at the sport, and also how he has a kinship with some facepuncher from the Federal League, aka American Hockey's Open Sewer. Then it was up to the booth, where the announcers intimated that since Kassian's sidelined with substance abuse problems, that means the Canucks won the trade. And that was enough hockey for tonight, thank you.

*ahem*

COCAAAAAAIIIIIIINE

http://www.tsn.ca/on-eve-of-season-nhl-acknowledges-possibly-more-players-using-cocaine-1.372075

If there are more than 20 players in the league doing coke,Captain Renault Bill Daly would be shocked.

Also:

Hey, what's Patrick Kane's public appearance schedule for this week? Anything involving his endorsement deal with Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana Chevy Dealers?

In lighter news, according to General Fanager, the Coyotes would be $1.181M above the salary floor, were it not for the padding they get from Chris Pronger's contract. The system works!

I can't tell if Adam Jahns has got jokes, or if he's just an NFL beat writer.

I don't see Jacobs' comments as anything other than "We've been given the candidates' stones, and now, it is time to squeeze."

And don't give me any crap about the sanctity and importance of geographic alignment. You were an owner in the '70s.

Oh, and come on out for Patrick Kane bobblehead night on January 24th against the Blues! Maybe the Erie County DA's office will have decided not to pursue charges against him by then, maybe not! Either way, it's brought to you by your Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana Chevy Dealers!

The Islanders have dropped their doofy Brooklyn goal horn, and have announced they're going back to the one they used in Uniondale.

Sportsmockery? Why they're every bit as unassailable as a Raiders fan!

"Oh, man, flying those guys around with us costs our $1.3bn sports franchise up to $200k! We'll never make a profit like this!" I wonder if Lou dry-humped a Ouija board he bought at Kensington Market and became possessed by Harold Ballard.

Everything about the Leafs' "Oh, they're finally being run by someone with a brain now" movement is going to get completely undermined by Lamoriello, and it is going to be a perverse delight. Has he killed the Leafs' alternate uniforms or fired Babcock and put himself behind the bench yet?

Look, if the NHL's going to keep turning a blind eye to drug abuse, at least limit cocaine to the forwards and restrict defensemen to painkillers only, so I can get some faster skating and more scoring out of this Faustian bargain.

OK, I'll grant you that, but the moment the accuser's attorney went out there and suggested tampering, lots of people immediately suggested that there was some massive conspiracy out there to help Kane because they desperately want him to look as guilty as possible because him being guilty fits their agenda.

Something I struggled with was the idea that the bag was planted by a "good Samaritan" blowing the whistle on tampering going on back at the station. Did this strike anyone else as a leap? Because it was presented here in town as the obvious conclusion at first. My first reaction was that it was meant to intimidate the family, that we know who you are and we know where you live and we got to your evidence and there's no telling how far our tentacles reach. Wouldn't someone with good intentions just tell the family something's up instead of staging something that looks menacing? Then it turned out it was just the mom being crazy.

It was presented as the lead theory because the attorney representing the alleged victim went out of his way during that Wednesday presser to state that it was their belief the bag was planted by a Good Samaritan. I don't know what circles you heard or read "obviously, it was a Good Samaritan" in and nothing else, but what I heard and read certainly did not dismiss the idea of it as intimidation.

Also, CS85: I can say with a minimum of 90% certainty that Dan Bernstein is not making any hiring decisions at The Score. "Get me a woman in the update booth so I can save some face after I went all boobs-crazy" is not how that hire was made.

Apparently, rape kits in Erie County never go into paper bags; they go into cardboard boxes. Why in the hell did they let everybody freak out for two days before letting that slip?

Everyone's praising Sedita for his mad dad dressing-down this morning, but getting angry after the fact doesn't excuse his office leaking like a cheap kiddie pool for nearly two months. He's managed this case poorly, too; he just comes out looking good by comparison after Thursday's antics.

Well, back when the Hawks were on The Score, they were a) buying airtime and eating ass.

As for the rest, I've listened to The Score on my drives to and from work for the past week after not listening with any regularity for nine years-ish, and I'm not hearing what you all are saying. However, you all listen far more than I do, and therefore you would be far better qualified to notice patterns in opinion and analysis, so I'll defer.

EDIT: I forgot that b + closed parenthesis = cool sunglasses smilie, but I like the end result and stand by it.

SECOND EDIT/RESPONSE: Possibility =/= likelihood. Putting all your chips on "this rape allegation was fabricated" is like dropping a stack on a single number in roulette. Is it possible you're right? Yes. Is it likely you are?