dirtygames.ca

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I know what you may be thinking but — despite the title in the header of this blog — this is not a website dedicated to the Chicago Blackhawks Game 4 performance.

In fact, one of the reasons we named the blog ‘Dirty Games’ is so that we could call that sort of cheap, thuggish and staggeringly impotent behaviour exactly what it is: An ugly, failed ploy from an increasingly desperate and outmatched hockey team.

We usually pride ourselves on being something of a thinking person’s sports blogger. When the topic turns to athletics, we try to provide the context, the overarching themes and the literary metaphors to lift the discussion from sports bullshit to somewhat more legitimate grounds. It rarely works, but we try to do it anyway, because there’s not enough of that kind of sports writing — or at least there’s not enough of that kind that’s any good — floating around the internet.

Today though? Fuck it. The Blackhawks deserved to get the shit pummeled out of them yesterday, if only to restore karmic balance to the universe. And one of the other reasons we started this blog is so that we could swear with motherfucking impunity.

The Hawks didn’t show up for the game and got their asses handed to them. You cannot ever bring less than your absolute best game against the Red Wings in the playoffs and expect to have a chance. It’s pretty much a given by now.

But the best part of this entire series has been the coaching matchup and the postgame press conferences. If the games themselves have been — in a metaphor the entire hockey world has slept with like a security blanket through the entire series — Big Brother vs. Little Brother, then the coaching matchup has been teacher vs. student. Or maybe principle vs. student. Or principle vs. special-needs-short-bus-riding student. It’s honestly not even that close.

The point is that Joel Queneville has been outclassed, out-thought, outmaneuvered and made to look like an increasingly frustrated and whiny little bitch. Basically, it’s May, so he’s doing what he does. But the meltdowns, as well as Mike Babcock’s explanations of what’s really going on, have added some much-needed drama to a series that has pretty much lacked it on the ice.

Here’s Babcock, explaining why Kronwall didn’t deserve a penalty, and why Quenneville is lying and he isn’t:

I guess to me, you hit the guy in the head, you hang out your elbow, hit the guy in the head, you’re headhunting for him, like when he’s… But that to me is not what I saw there.

So, now, good thing about it is you’re asking a biased guy. I heard Joel Quenneville talk about it. What he does is he comes in, whether he believes it or not, he tells you what he’s got to tell you. I actually believe what I’m telling you. It’s the facts.

I mean, I went over it a hundred times. Before I came in here, I wanted to see did he leave his feet. Kroner, what he does, usually he’s got so much pop in him, he explodes through the guy. At the end of the check when he’s done, he’s off the ice.

That wasn’t the case here at all in the situation. Anyway, enough of that. What else?

It’s fairly obvious that the Red Wings are more talented than the Hawks, but if you switch the coaches in this series, the Hawks would be at least tied and probably up 3-1 right now.

Consider: The Blackhawks had what one could call — without any sort of hyperbole — the best pre-game situation they could hope for:yesterday. Nicklas Lidstrom, the six-time Norris winner and best defenceman in the last 30 years? Out. Pavel Datsyuk, Hart trophy nominee, the team’s leading scorer and reigning defensive forward of the year? Out. Kris Draper? A heart-and-soul component of four cup-winners, a former Selke winner and the best faceoff man in the NHL? Out.

Add to that the motivation the Hawks could utilize to avenge the evil Niklas Kronwall for his “gutless” hit on their treasured teammate, Martin Havlat. Add to that the Willis Reed-esque motivation of Havlat demanding to play despite still being a little bit woozy. Add to that a raucous home crowd and the momentum of a miraculous overtime victory in the previous game.

I mean — what the hell else do you want? Aside from politely asking Johan Franzen if he would mind not playing the role of Force of Nature tonight, and him agreeing for reasons known only to The Franzen … you couldn’t ask for more.

And then you go out and get smoked 6-1?! With all those factors in your favour?! And you have nothing to say after the game but some reprehensible bullshit about “the worst call in the history of sports”?!

Meanwhile, Mike Babcock calmly gets his team ready to play, missing Hall-of-Famers or not. They play a balanced game, avoiding dumb penalties and emotional bullshit, and dismantle their opponent. And all Babcock says is that “I thought guys were gonna step up.”

Not to put too fine a point on it, but everything about the Blackhawks’ effort in this game was moronic, pointless and self-defeating. They couldn’t even manage to extract proper thuggish revenge, if that sort of juvenile achievement was indeed their goal.

Mike Babcock finished the game looking like the same kind of classy coach he always does. He should have worn the fedora he sported at the Winter Classic, just to remind everyone how much of a pimp he can be.

Quenneville, meanwhile, looked like a harried father — a man who agreed to take his own kids, as well as the neighbours’, to the zoo, only to realize, with a dozen brats running wild everywhere and other patrons giving him increasingly dirty looks, that he’d bitten off far more than he could chew. He had, quite simply, no control of the situation. For a professional coach, that’s a pretty damning indictment.

Yep. Teacher vs. Retarded Student, indeed. It’’s called being out-fucking-coached.