CS85

This is America, sir, and here in 'Merica, we don't have no soccer bullcrap. You take that fruitin-tootin' man-kissin' garbage and go back to Yorope.

There's gotta be some blorp town in one of the Dakotas or Maine that has a grungy fanbase of 20-30,000 people who will put their asses in the seats for the bulk of the regular season.

Just...just leave. Ya know? Go. They don't want you there. Where are you supposed to go? I don't know! Somewhere else!

Ah yes, just what the NHL is missing: teams in red and black.

Yeah, well, you're wrong and stuff This has been a quality post, and you're welcome for being blessed to have read it

It's all inevitable. The entire product, every single aspect of it, will enter a closed system. Annual subscriptions, local market premium fees, PPV super bowl, draft, and playoffs.

Somewhere in Wisconsin feels like the logical non-Canada landing spot, if I was to pull suggestions assward. A second franchise in Michigan? Would Indiana work?

Would Ohio be able to support two NHL franchises? Feels very iffy.

They likely broke even after the first ad break checks cashed.

If the Hurricanes wore their Whalers alts for the entire series, by law we would have to support them.

Easily a fireable decision. Just...the epitome of brand suicide.

Proud of the Kraken for having a noteworthy playoff run. They did the "plucky, you don't belong here, kid" thing and made some noise. Brought some eyes to the franchise and displayed some moxie and all that crap. That said, the remaining four teams are all mostly unlikeable and I want nothing to do with whoever's left. I guess go...Canes? Panthers? This feels like rooting for a blooming onion that's been sitting in a window for a few weeks.

I am not a big fan of the ILLINOIS helmet, but I get why people have a soft spot for it. I’ll keep an eye out around campus for any niblets. I walk by the Smith building nearly every day.

The man looks like he's trying really hard not to poop himself.

Curious what direction they go. It'd be nice if they added, I dunno, anything to give their uniforms flavor. They pivoted so damn hard post-Chief that they've left themselves virtually nothing to lean on branding-wise. "Hail to the Orange" doesn't really mean anything besides "go orange team," and they refuse to adopt a mascot, so....what now? The helmet they revealed in 2021 feels like the optimal and timeless helmet they can trot out game in and game out: My guess is they'll add a little bit more white and probably return to a block numeral. Maybe a couple touches from the Butkus era? Dunno. The uniforms could stand to have a little bit more but they should stay the course and not have a boatload of alts. Iconify the helmet, embrace the orange, and introduce a pinch of flavor.

The greatest underdog story in the history of sports has come to fruition. How embarrassing.

If two expansion teams meet in the playoffs and nobody watches, did the series actually happen?

Oh my god, the punchline of the joke is coming and it’s remarkably unfunny. Looks like I’ll be buying a renegades championship tee. me.

Ad reps in Chicago are already drawing up marketing for Bedard, but he's too young to shill for Binny's, so in a noble attempt to mend fences, they've signed Kyle Beach to be their 2023/24 Binny's Blackhawks ambassador for the 2023 holiday promotion run. Insiders say Beach will be himself while Jay Zawaski comically portrays a caricature of Brad Aldrich named "Heywood Jablowme." A Santa Claus-hat wearing Beach will pantomime giving fellatio to "Heywood" and turn to look at the camera, saying "this holiday season, it's better to give than to receive, right Heywood?" Zawaski, feigning tears of shame, replies "the 2023 Binny's Beverage Lineup is *unf* assaulting store shelves all throughout *oh god, oh* Chicagoland!" Beach then pulls a Binny's gift card out of his mouth and places it on "Heywood's" sweating, bare chest, telling him and the camera, "shhhh, don't tell!" as cheerful Christmas bells and reindeer frame the graphic with all the local Binny's addresses.

I guess so, but as a jaded Hawks fan I feel I don't fall into the buckets of envious outsider, so from that perspective I can potentially see your point. Blah.

I'd be a lot less irritated by this if Blackhawks fans weren't spiking the football after months of diminishing the Beach scandal. The fallout was a big deal to me, and obviously hockey is the banner sport for scumbags across the world so perhaps I'm just a naive wimpy snowflake, but between the fans "so much salt LOL" "get blown, homo" crap and Rocky launching a two-inch putt from Mark Lazerus into the Grand Canyon, it just...sucks. It's apparently too much to ask for some to take a thoughtful approach. Chicago media this morning has been, as you'd expect, celebratory and fans are excited. There's lots of "we can finally stop talking about the negative" angles, which is understandable. I dunno. Maybe I should just get over my empathy.

The r/Hawks posters are, ah, something.

Cool

Ok

Alrighty