Imrem: Blackhawks strong enough to bear the burden

Shhhhh … hold it down … keep this at a whisper.

The Blackhawks don't need any more pressure than merely being expected to win another Stanley Cup.

The Hawks already have quietly fashioned a 2-0 record going into Wednesday night's home game against Calgary.

Let's just let them go out and play their game.

We certainly don't want to tell them out loud that so much more is at stake than the best trophy in all of sports.

The mental health of Chicago sports fans is riding on the Hawks, who are an island of "must see" in a sea of "don't want to see."

Other than the Hawks, local teams are "The Walking Dead" roaming the streets in search of safety in a post-apocalyptic sports world.

OK, that's a stretch, but you get the idea.

The Bears' victory at Atlanta notwithstanding, this has been a pathetic calendar year for our local darlings.

The Cubs, Bulls, Bears and White Sox combined to qualify for the postseason once, slosh through one playoff series and win one of five playoff games.

All those "ones" came in the Bulls' first-round loss to Washington. Meanwhile, the Blackhawks played 19 playoff games over three playoff series, won 11 of them and advanced to within a blink of the Stanley Cup Final.

Maybe the Bears will reverse the trend in 2015, now that they are back to .500 and contenders to play at least one playoff game in January.

Maybe the Bears will even advance all the way to the Super Bowl, the Cubs and Sox will meet in next year's World Series and the Bulls will win the NBA title.

Yeah, sure, and maybe Illinois will become a functional state next year.

Our baseball teams eternally rebuild, the Bears eternally expect Jay Cutler to become consistent, and the Bulls eternally hope Derrick Rose's knees become bionic.

The Hawks have become Chicago's hope. What sets them apart is that more than any other team in town, fans can invest trust in them.

There's reasonable certainty that the Hawks won't lose because they weren't committed to do everything in their power to win.

That might be a first for a Chicago sports team, what with trust being in short supply here.

The other best local teams in recent memory - the '80s Bears and '90s Bulls - always seemed to have to get out of their own way during their runs of winning seasons.

Those Bulls weren't defeated by their own power struggles because they had Michael Jordan. The Bears were defeated by personality conflicts because they had Michael McCaskey.

Nothing has distracted these Blackhawks. Not yet anyway. Not even after they won Stanley Cups in 2010 and 2013.

The sense remains - it has been this way for several years - that nobody associated with the Hawks will cut corners or permit commerce to overrule competition.

Egos haven't clashed in the Hawks' organization like they did with those Bears and Bulls. The chairman and president have a single heartbeat, the general manager and head coach peacefully resolve differences, and the two most prominent players like and respect each other.

Perhaps at some point bickering will begin and tear at the Hawks and the core will have to be reconfigured.

Fans might grow impatient if the Hawks don't win another championship sooner than later. Media that have been so complimentary might start portraying them as overpaid underachievers.

But for now the Hawks sure look like the one local team committed to excellence while the others are like "The Walking Dead" committed to finding a safe place to settle.

Keep it quiet, though, because being Chicago's only "it" team is a big burden to bear.

mimrem@dailyherald.com