Hawks' Burish relishes enforcer role

As the pregame music blared Sunday in Vancouver, Blackhawks forward Adam Burish and the Canucks' Byron Ritchie skated slowly toward center ice.

The two were there -- in theory -- to take the opening faceoff, but a funny thing happened on the way to the start of the game … and it began with a simple nod.

"Big game tonight," Ritchie said to Burish. "Let's get the crowd going."

"When the puck drops, we're going," the Hawks' rookie responded.

"Right on."

They proved good to their word. A second after the puck dropped, the gloves came off and before you could say holy middleweight madness, the pair had thrown about a dozen punches each over a 10-second span, ending with Burish on top of Ritchie and the Vancouver crowd in a frenzy.

"There wasn't a whole lot of defense going on there," Burish said with a smile.

But evidently that's just what many hockey fans like in their fights -- a good offense -- because the scrum has garnered nearly 27,000 hits already on YouTube.

"I have a lot of respect for him; he plays hard," Burish said of Ritchie. "He didn't come to me in a bad way; I didn't go to him in a bad way."

But together they put on quite a fight, and that's a role Burish is getting used to in his first full season with the Blackhawks.

"I did in the minors a little last year, but it's a role I've kind of stepped into and I enjoy it," said the Madison, Wis., native. "I love playing in the NHL, and if it's something I have to do at times to play here for a long time, I have no problem doing it. I love getting in guys' faces, I love being confrontational, but at the same time you try to do it in a respectful manner.

"You don't want guys skating away saying, 'That guy's got no class, that guy's got no respect.' But you've got to be confrontational and enjoy that confrontation."

And you've got to get accustomed to the delayed onset of pain that follows one of those confrontations.

"It's funny, because if you ask other guys who fight, most of them would tell you that you don't feel anything that day or that game, but you wake up the next morning and you'll scratch your head and say, 'Where did that lump come from?'

"At the time you're so revved up, you want to get your team going, you don't feel anything -- you're on an adrenaline rush. It's usually the day after that you'll feel a couple of lumps or a couple of bruises."

It's that kind of attitude that has earned Burish and his mates on the fourth line -- Martin Lapointe and Craig Adams -- the ultimate from Hawks coach Denis Savard, who over the last six games has sent the trio on the ice to start each game.

"They deserve it," Savard said Thursday. "They're a bunch of leaders. They've really done a great job."

For Burish, the job description no doubt means more fights are coming. And with enforcer David Koci no longer on the roster, the 6-foot-1, 189-pounder knows he's rarely going to have a size advantage in future scraps.

"I don't care," Burish said. "If that's what is asked of me, if that's what I have to do, I'm going to go out and do it.

"Every time you get in a fight you learn something new. You have a plan. But like Muhammad Ali said, 'Everybody has a plan until you get punched in the face.' "

• In a move that would seem to indicate Nikolai Khabibulin's sprained knee is not as bad as first thought, the Hawks on Friday assigned goaltender Corey Crawford to the Rockford IceHogs of the AHL.

Crawford was recalled Thursday after Khabibulin sprained his knee in Wednesday's 7-2 win at Columbus. He served as the backup goaltender to Patrick Lalime in Thursday's 6-1 win at Nashville.