Jim O'Donnell: Nothing chilly about the reception the great Chelios will get today
AS AHMET ERTEGUN, the recording business legend, undoubtedly once told David Geffen, “When the new stuff isn't selling, put out a greatest hits album.”
That's what the re-bumbling Blackhawks will do this afternoon when Chris Chelios is honored and the polar-capped 2023-24 season is overlooked for a little while at the United Center.
Kevin Cross and NBC Sports Chicago will snap out of their robo-programming catatonia for a couple of hours beginning at 3 p.m. to air the celebration surrounding the retirement of Chelios' sweater No. 7.
Michael Jordan won't be there. But he was never dynamite on ice skates anyway, so who cares? (“Ice Jam,” even with Bugs Bunny, Anne Murray, Drake and Muggsy Bogues, would probably have tanked.)
“Cheli” will have a rink of old teammates and friends plus family as his tremendous nine-season run on West Madison Street (1990-99) is commemorated.
PAT FOLEY WILL PARTICIPATE as on-ice emcee, a sure sign that Danny Wirtz and business boss Jaime Faulkner are trying to make nice with fresh and familiar echoes.
No Thelma Krause, though, so booing should be at a minimum.
Reality returns at 5 p.m. with puck drop vs. the Detroit Red Wings. That's the team that Chelios — then age 37 — was traded to in 1999 and went on to win two Stanley Cups with. That completed a career triple begun before the Blackhawks with Montreal.
A magic moment must happen when young Connor Bedard, 18, poses alongside “Cheli.”
It'll be two very different eras of Blackhawks glad-pucking in the afternoon.
One is a certifiable greatest hit. The other, NHL — fate and health permitting — appears destined to be.
STREET-BEATIN':
John Schriffen, the White Sox new TV play-by-play man, called his first spring training games this weekend. As Jason Benetti might counsel, Schriffen's tenure on the South Side should be targeted to a firm three-and-out (2024-26). Anything after that, far too much soul begins to drain out on to West 35th Street. …
The podcast candor of Justin Fields recently — about wanting to tune out football for a while — is being perceived by the more astute as evidence of his stout sense of self-worth and festering determination. He still wants to win games and is a far wiser NFL man after his three years in the purgatory of Bear Down Flats. Some organization is going to benefit from his backlogged talent and stoic dues paying. …
Strong feeling that a change will do Chris Collins good regardless of what kind of NCAA tournament run Northwestern makes. It's simply too hard to sustain a winning men's program on The Enchanted Lakefront. Collins, 49, has done the best coaching of his career in the last two seasons. Every “W” the Wildcats notch in The Dance merely sweetens his pool of potential suitors. …
Young Jac Collinsworth is out as Notre Dame game caller for NBC but will remain with the network. Great pedigree but a bit green, meaning he should have been perfect for the Irish. Grandfather Abe Collinsworth played for Adolph Rupp's “Fiddlin' Five,” Kentucky's undersized NCAA basketball champs way back in 1957-58. (Father Cris Collinsworth is in between.) ...
Morningstar wiz Joe Mansueto has yet to express buyer's remorse as the Chicago Fire F.C. begins its fifth season under his sole control. The club hasn't made the MLS playoffs since 2017. Belgian ace Hugo Cuypers — the gent from Gent — must help. The team has a radio deal with WLS-AM (890) that will put 10 games on the big stick and the rest streaming at wlsam.com. (Steve Cochran need not sit in.) …
Grand that Robbie Gould is the new head football coach at Rolling Meadows. It could turn the high school into a doink-free zone. But the doinking of media Friday morning at the school by District 214 aide Patrick Mogge was plum dumb. Reporters shouldn't have been escorted out of the building. They should have been escorted to a waiting area until Gould's first “players-only” meeting was over. It's public tax money that underwrites officious brusqueness like that. …
Daily Herald alum Patricia Babcock-McGraw joins Matt Rodewald and sideliner Kacy Standohar to call the Fremd vs. Batavia Class 4A Bartlett supersectional Monday (7 p.m., CW 26 — “The U”). Ella Todd and the Vikings will have their hands full with Brooke Carlson, BHS's budding answer to Caitlin Clark. …
Critics of WSCR-AM (670) morning huffer Mike Mulligan are overlooking a key truth: The Sun-Times veteran has all but perfected his fake Hanna-Barbera dog laugh. That talent alone could add years to his career at the increasingly oxygen-starved station. …
And Charles Barkley, on audience-free Fox Sports 1 poltroon Skip Bayless: “I wish I could put on more weight so I could hate him even more.”
Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Thursday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.