Imrem: Rose, Kane injuries a double whammy for fans
Bruce Springsteen lyrics keep chugging through the mind.
"At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet … and a freight train running through the middle of my head."
The song is, "I'm On Fire." How fitting. For a Chicago sports fan a flaming train is scorching the psyche down the center track.
On one side are hockey, the NHL, the Blackhawks. On the other side are basketball, the NBA, the Bulls.
They're competing for attention and maybe sympathy over whose straits are more dire.
Hawks' side: "Patrick Kane is a bigger loss."
Bulls' side: "No, Derrick Rose is a bigger loss."
Hawks' side: "Kane is at the top of the NHL scoring race and an MVP candidate."
Bulls' side: "Rose already has been an MVP and is the face of the franchise."
Back and forth they went after Patrick Kane's shoulder was injured in a game and shortly thereafter news arrived that Derrick Rose would undergo a third knee surgery.
What a night and what a turn of events. At the turn of the year the Bulls and Blackhawks were rolling well enough to provide relief from the Bears' debacle.
Then each dipped into a relative funk and now these twin injuries inflict aches on both sides of a fan's head.
Chicago sports have suffered dueling, catastrophic, history-altering injuries: Gale Sayers' and Dick Butkus' knees, Kerry Wood's and Mark Prior's arms …
But can anyone remember a left hook and right uppercut like the punches that landed Tuesday night?
Maybe the injuries were inevitable. Kane is a smallish subject to biggish hits; Rose's knees have been tears waiting to happen for three years now.
But on the same night? Couldn't the sports gods space them out by at least a week? Or did they want to confine the shock to one short period?
It's enough to make you skittishly wonder what lurks around the corner.
(Please, don't even half-joke that Chris Sale and Jon Lester will blow out arms on the same day this spring training.)
If anyone wonders why fans around here tend to be paranoid, it's situations like this. It isn't paranoia if the world is out to get you, right?
Bulls' side: "Initial reports are that Kane will be out only as long as 10 weeks but Rose's season could be over."
Blackhawks' side: "But Kane was playing way better than Rose was. He's definitely a bigger loss."
Bulls' side: "But we have to play Hinrich more while you can use that kid Teravainen."
Hawks' side: "OK, you're right, you win."
So the loss of Rose is worse if he is finished for the season. The Bulls can't win an NBA title without him and couldn't if he didn't regain his old form.
The Hawks can hold their own until Kane returns - the prognosis was 12 weeks of recovery after he underwent surgery Wednesday to repair his fractured left clavicle - and hold out hope that he will be healthy enough to contribute to a playoff run.
Heck, the Rose injury might even signal the end of an entire Bulls era that once was so promising.
It sure looks like Rose never again will be what he was. It sure feels like management and head coach Tom Thibodeau will divorce sooner than later. It sure smells like another rebuild is imminent.
The Hawks will recover and remain contenders, if not this season then next as long as Kane, Jonathan Toews and enough of the rest of the core remains intact.
But no forecast makes any of this seem any better.
"I'm On Fire," indeed:
"Sometimes it's like someone took a knife baby … edgy and dull and cut a six-inch valley … through the middle of my soul."
mimrem@dailyherald.com