Verdi: Breaking down hockey Cold War between Minnesota, Chicago
As surely as these modern Blackhawks are a breath of fresh air and a ray of sunshine to their fans, so have the defending Stanley Cup champions become featured performers in the National Hockey League's highly successful venture to the great outdoors.
For a record fourth time, the Blackhawks are to test the elements when they visit the Minnesota Wild for another installment of the NHL Stadium Series on Sunday. The game shall unfold at TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, home to the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers and temporary address for the Minnesota Vikings until their new downtown facility is completed.
Who knew that it would be a harbinger of such good times when, only 109 seconds into the first period, Brent Seabrook banged into Daniel Cleary so vigorously that the Detroit Red Wings forward, stenciled to the boards, flipped onto Chicago's bench at Wrigley Field? That check on New Year's Day at the 2009 Winter Classic underscored the Blackhawks' aspirations to return to the sport's radar after a prolonged absence.
The Blackhawks wanted to be like the Red Wings, annual contenders for a championship. The Blackhawks intended to raise the roof and be seen in broad daylight. The Blackhawks pledged to eliminate any ceiling to their expectations. After three Cups in six years, the born-again Blackhawks are back, an international brand, prime-time entertainment regardless of when they play, where, or against whom. The Blackhawks travel well, as do their fans. This is a franchise that opens its training camp by selling out practice, for goodness' sake.
“We are honored to be part of these events that symbolize the essence of hockey in its purest form,” said Blackhawks president and CEO John McDonough, who lobbied extensively for that coming-out party in the Cubs' lair as well as the 2014 Stadium Series affair on March 1 at Soldier Field, where the Bears do their thing, and the Blackhawks did theirs, waxing the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-1.
That was a snowy evening, but the Blackhawks are weatherproof. They excel at this winter sport, yet do some of their best work in June. If you saw a bunch of young fellows with pasty white skin and scraggly beards looking somewhat gaunt around Tampa last spring, those were the Blackhawks, prepping for another title run against the Lightning. It was a beach day, but the Blackhawks choose to wait awhile for summer tans and tee times. The Blackhawks dig those parades and trips to the White House.
A heritage game
This outdoor party is an NHL first for Minnesota, which proudly proclaims itself the “State of Hockey.” That is not a boast; it is a pedigree. There are 10,000 lakes in Minnesota, suitable for freezing. More than half the roster of precocious college kids who pulled off the “Miracle on Ice” at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y., were attending school in their native Minnesota when they earned gold medals. They were coached by Herb Brooks, a Minnesota legend. There is a statue of Brooks outside the Wild's arena, Xcel Energy Center, in St. Paul. A great man.
After Brooks passed away in 2003, his Olympians attended the funeral, only their second reunion since they united the country. Honorary pallbearers raised hockey sticks as Brooks' casket was carried down the steps at the Cathedral of St. Paul. In searing August heat, players who had winced at Brooks' rigid style perspired one more time beside him and sobbed a tearful adieu to the coach who told them before that historic and colossal upset of the Soviet Union, “This moment is yours.” Thirteen of those Olympians had NHL careers after Lake Placid, an unfathomable feat before Lake Placid. In the 17 years of the NHL amateur draft prior to 1980, not a single American high school hockey player was selected. After that transformative and heavily Minnesota-flavored Olympic triumph, American athletes were scouted and signed by the dozens. State of Hockey, indeed.
Sizing up the rivalry
Although Minnesota folks are famously genteel — hence the “Minnesota Nice” stereotype and their favorite phrase, “You betcha” — the Wild cannot possibly be in a cheerful mood, even for a happening such as the Stadium Series. They've established an admirable organization since the franchise was granted in 2000, but this Chicago thing has been a problem. The Blackhawks have eliminated the Wild in the last three postseasons, winning 12 games, losing only three and outscoring Minnesota 45-27.
Last May, the Wild and their legions thought the time had come for a reversal. But the Blackhawks swept the second round in four straight, and they generally concurred with conventional wisdom. Those 10 days off before their next series, a meat grinder against the Anaheim Ducks, was vital to the cause of securing that third Cup in the last six years.
The Blackhawks and the Wild are building a rivalry, no question. But it will have to take quantum leaps to approximate what transpired between the Blackhawks and Minnesota North Stars during a less temperate era, when both sides circled the dates of their matches on the calendar and then arrived at the rink, here or there, not in a State of Hockey but a State of Ill-Humor. Before the Blackhawks and North Stars played a game, parental guidance was advised: Tuck the children in bed and tell them who won in the morning.
The North Stars were born in 1967 and joined an all-expansion West Division with the five other new teams. However, in 1970, when the NHL grew from 12 to 14 franchises, the Blackhawks switched to the West, and familiarity — followed by contempt — between them and the North Stars began to veer toward outright truculence.
By the early 1980s, the Blackhawks and North Stars were part of a six-team Norris Division. As luck would have it, they met during the playoffs in four consecutive springs starting in 1982. With temperatures rising, Blackhawks fans declared as their enfant terrible one Dino Ciccarelli, a feisty forward. Meanwhile, North Star supporters established a fervent dislike for Al Secord, a muscular Chicago winger around whom angels feared to tread.
One night at the Stadium, just after a faceoff, Secord's stick seemed to have a mind of its own as it creased Ciccarelli's head. He went down in a heap, arose, and then was helped to the visitors' locker room by Minnesota's trainer. Though dazed, Dino mustered enough energy to manage a gesture toward taunting spectators at the old abattoir. We've examined the grainy video several times, and we suspect it was not the peace sign.
“For years in junior hockey, I had to line up against Secord's team,” Ciccarelli groused. “I finally get to the NHL, Minnesota and Chicago hate each other, and who do I have to deal with again? Secord.”
In 1982, the North Stars won their first division title, and Head Coach Glen Sonmor announced his plans if they met Chicago in the playoffs, which they did. He tabbed Secord “an idiot.” As for Denis Savard, the Blackhawks' special talent, Sonmor assured his North Stars would “wring his neck.” Chicago surprised Minnesota, winning a best-of-five set that concluded in the Stadium, where fans emulated combatants and fought among themselves.
At the Met Center, where the gigantic Mall of America now stands, there evolved a titanic brawl late in the 1982-83 season. Both benches emptied, serial tiffs went on for more than 20 minutes, and play was halted for almost an hour. Ron Friest was expelled for banging Steve Larmer's skull on the ice, but the featured bout involved Ciccarelli and Savard, a virtuoso who was a scorer, not a fighter.
“He hit me once, and that was it, 5 seconds,” recalled Savard, now a Blackhawks' Hall of Fame Ambassador. “Then we went at again, and he took me in another 5 seconds. A little later, Dino was standing at center ice, motioning to me. ‘You want to go again?' What, did he think I was crazy?”
Memorable moments
It was against the North Stars that Savard authored his first — but not last — fantastic spin-o-rama goal, treating defenseman Daniel Berger like a traffic cone. It was against the North Stars that Hall of Fame broadcaster Pat Foley voiced his famous “BAAANNNERRMAN!” call when Blackhawks goalie Murray Bannerman stoned Keith Acton, who stripped the normally reliable Bill Gardner of the puck on a Chicago power play and embarked on a breakaway.
“I made Pat famous that night,” asserted Gardner, who later became Foley's sidekick in the booth.
It was also against the North Stars that the two teams couldn't wait for the puck to drop. During one pregame warm-up at the Stadium, Shane Churla of the North Stars and Wayne Van Dorp of the Blackhawks initiated the unpleasantries. Everybody joined in, while Foley, who was dining with supervisor and Hall of Fame linesman Matt Pavelich in the bowels of the Stadium, heard giant roars from above.
“Matt's eyes became as big as saucers,” Foley recounted. “The game officials were still in their room. Nobody was on the ice to restore peace. Matt got up, took two steps, came back to grab two more buns, then ran upstairs.”
Troy Murray, the Blackhawks' current analyst on WGN Radio AM-720, also partook in the mayhem.
“Seven seconds into a playoff game against them,” he said. “I checked Dave Richter into the boards. Big guy. He came after me and opened me up like a pumpkin. I had cuts over both eyes, lost a contact lens. I wound up just swatting at his feet. I went down for repairs. Played one more shift all night, face swollen, could barely see. Naturally, on that one shift, I ran into Brent Ashton. He was ready to go. Then he took one look at me and said, ‘Haven't you had enough for one night?'”
Breaking barriers
Cold war intracity commerce figured to be nonnegotiable, at least until 1988, when the North Stars traded Dirk Graham to the Blackhawks for the popular and sturdy Curt Fraser. Graham got wind of a possible deal, and there was only one place he didn't want to go.
“Chicago,” said Graham. “Our two teams hated each other. When I heard I was going there, my first reaction was ‘Oh, no.' The first couple days with the Blackhawks, it was a little chilly. But Troy, who was close with Curt and skated with him, was great. He came over to me and said, ‘Anything I can do to help you here, let me know.'”
Graham went on to become a Selke Trophy winner, Blackhawks captain and head coach.
Although the Blackhawks had won four of five playoff series against Minnesota, they incurred an excruciating exit in 1991 after winning the Presidents' Trophy with a league-high 106 points. Pitted in the opening round against the North Stars, who had finished 38 points below them in the division, the Blackhawks lost their way and their poise, and were ousted in six edgy games. The upstart North Stars advanced to the Stanley Cup Final, losing to Pittsburgh. Two years later, the North Stars were gone. They moved to Texas, once home to Chicago's top farm club, the Dallas Black Hawks.
Friendly reunion?
In a masterful bit of scheduling, former Blackhawks and North Stars have been recruited for an alumni tilt on the Saturday before the Stadium Series game. Several of the aforementioned combatants shall partake, presumably mellowed and up for some fun. Maybe sore joints instead of sore feelings? Dare we forecast — what do they label it in soccer — a friendly?
“Since we retired, I met Ciccarelli,” Savard said. “Good guy. Same with Sonmor. I saw him before he passed away. Great guy. Those were nasty games we had against them. Really nasty. Intimidation was a big part of the league then. It's not like that now, which is good. I don't think you'll see any rough stuff in our alumni game against them. I know I'm not going to mess with Ciccarelli. He whipped me twice. You think I'm going to let him go for a three-peat?”
• Editor's note: As part of an alliance with the Blackhawks, the Daily Herald offers occasional reports by Team Historian Bob Verdi, who writes for the team's website at www.chicagoblackhawks.com.