Addictions not easy to shake: when do Blackhawks play?

Those unshakeable shakes are back again.

The cold sweats, involuntary urges and powerless feelings are asserting themselves again.

Addiction is a terrible disease. It wraps its clutches around the innards and refuses to let go.

I haven't spoken much about this publicly. Didn't feel the need. Thought I had it beat, one day at a time, 12 steps at a time.

Drugs? No, silly. Alcohol? No. Sex? No. Chocolate? No.

Uh-oh, now you're thinking, I have the absolute worst of all addictions. No, not golf either.

It's those freakin' Blackhawks.

Tragically, the vices you experiment with during childhood tend to remain the rest of your life.

Hockey hooked me in grammar school. We were assigned to write an essay on a television show and I did mine on an NHL game.

When Bobby Hull came along, hockey zoomed right up there with baseball, ahead of even the NFL.

Like a lot of addicts addicted to a lot of addictions, I thought I had it beat in middle age. I could joke about not attending a Hawks game for longer than I can recall. The last one was sometime between, I don't know, the Bobby Hull and Tony Salmelainen eras.

Sad to say, however, the shakes began returning last season.

My curiosity was tweaked when some guy named Martin Havlat scored a few fancy goals. Then in the off-season the Hawks had the draft's first overall pick and I found myself watching it with as much anticipation as the NFL or NBA drafts.

Thank goodness I was able to get in touch with my Hockey Anonymous counselor and he was able to talk me back off the pond:

"Remember Bill Wirtz … Remember Jeremy Roenick, Eddie Belfour and Chris Chelios being driven away … Remember way back to Bobby Hull leaving town … Remember that the United Center isn't the old Chicago Stadium … Remember that home games still aren't televised …"

Man, the guy always knows the right thing to say, how to free me from my inclination toward this maddening team and sport.

Until now, it appears. The hockey demons are rearing their stitched heads again. They're perverting my senses and consuming my compulsions.

The initial symptom was reading newspaper stories about the Hawks. Then it was putting their road game on the silent side of a split-screen TV. Then it was turning on the radio to check the score of a home game. Then it was watching games with the audio on.

Then going to a home game? Er, no, not yet, but I'm thinking about it. I'd like to see those two teenagers, Jonathon Toews and Patrick Kane.

"Remember that you can't name five players on the Hawks or any NHL team … Remember that you can't remember what the teams in Columbus, Atlanta and Nashville are called … Remember that you can't remember whether Guam beat Morocco or vice versa in last season's Stanley Cup Finals …"

OK, buddy, I'll try to resist awhile longer before breaking down and going to a Hawks game, try to wait to see whether their early success is legitimate, try to wait to see whether Toews and Kane are for real.

But I'm scared, folks.

My urges might be irresistible this time around because my name is Mike and I'm a Hawkaholic."

mimrem@dailyherald.com