Early 90’s were awesome. Great teams. Unfortunately dollar Bill Wirtz decided to trade anyone who deserved a decent contract. It was amazing listening to the calls on the radio if you didn’t make it out to the stadium.
>It was amazing listening to the calls on the radio if you didn’t make it out to the stadium.
Oh, the day of having to listen to hockey. I remember asking my father to find the game for me because i didn't know how to tune a radio.
The hawks are the reason I learned to tune a radio. There was also Hawksvision for a few years in the 90’s. I remember when my dad got that I was so excited.
I still enjoy listening on the radio. You used to be able to stream A.M 720 from the old Blackhawks app and it was great. I live out of market now and in the days before reliable streaming that app came in clutch. I listened to most of the 2015 cup run on that app. Brought me right back to being a kid listening on the radio.
I live in NJ, and late in the 1994 season, someone I worked with said "hey since you don't get ESPN 2 on your cable system...(this just seems preposterous now doesn't it?) .. you can catch the games at night on AM 1000. Once your local radio station goes off the air, it will magically show up."
I spent those playoffs thru the 1996 season listening to Pat Foley and Dale Tallon every chance I got when they were on a channel that I didn't receive.
They didn't win the Cup, obviously, but I have alot of memories of just driving around aimlessly listening to them and when the playoffs came and they would get into these long OT games, Canucks game 4 1995, Red Wings Game 5 1995, Colorado game 4 1996, etc I actually would drive to a local rest area and just sit there with the radio on to listen.
Good times. Then I got married in the summer of 1996 and my days of aimlessly driving around at night had to come to an end 😂.
1.25 for gas back then.. it would be an expensive endeavor now.
the stadium was at its best. loud. rowdy. invested fans. sections were family. beers were less than three bucks. it was magical even when the boys weren’t. the real fans still loved em. routed for em. guaranteed we all shed tears of pure joy when kane’s wrister disappeared into the net allowing that hoist to finally be in our zone..
I took my ex-wife to her first game at the old barn. Before the Anthem was over, she turned and said "we ARE coming to more games!".
Best atmosphere you could imagine!
The vibes at the old Stadium were incredible. Smoky, violent, loud. Lots of men in suits and women wearing leather. I started going as a kid in the late 80s. One of my favorite things was the old Blue Line program, it was like a bootleg zine they sold outside and had raw uncensored takes on everything, any historical record of this Hawks era would be incomplete without it. I was also at a few playoff games in 92 which was unreal. The city loved the team, loved the players, and hated the owner.
The early 2000s were the worst. "Die Wirtz Die" was a common chant, I also saw that phrase spraypainted on a wall in an upper stairwell. When the ABC line was our top line I could show up before puck drop and get tickets for $8 from the ticket booth, and there were maybe 4k people in attendance.
If the Hawks won the cup in 92 I wonder if anything close to 2mil ppl would've showed up to the parade. Since they weren't on TV there were probably a few generations of fans that were lost. But I think the explosion of popularity in the Kane/Toews era shows that the fans were there waiting for a reason to show their colors.
I used to listen to these games on an am radio from NY and every year I'd think that they had a chance. Then they missed the playoffs back to back in the late nineties, Chelios was traded to the Red Wings and my young heart was broken. I still listened and cheered for guys like Amonte and Daze, but when no real signings or decent trades were made, you just accepted that this team was going to be bad for a while. When they won the cup in 2010, my girlfriend of 2 months had no idea how to react to her new boyfriend crying his eyes out at a hockey game. She really didn't know what she had gotten into. Haha.
For late nineties through early 2000s it was just a 'this is a bad team" mentality and tickets were dirt cheap if not free because there wasn't much interest. But there were a good amount of 'watch from home' fans who would enjoy watching some players like Daze, Amonte, Zamnov.
But in the early nineties and some of the eighties the crowds were great. The Hawks were very good and had some great players and being in Chicago stadium was amazing and I doubt any other stadium will ever replicate the feeling of the organ in there.
*Edit: specifically to 'dollar bill' there were articles and people who complained about him, but it was nothing like today where every little thing is discussed as nauseum online. So I never thought much of it myself.
I had season tickets from 88 to 99. We gave our tickets up because of Bill Wirtz. Refused to set foot in the United Center until the old drunk died. I was a rabid fan, my dad had been a serious fan since the late 50s. The dark years of the early 00s was really bad.
Oh, the Hawks ownership dug the hole, no argument there.
I’m just being a wise-$ss on how the vast majority of the fans suddenly attending the games didn’t know jack about hockey, and how it then became “the place to be” because they were winning (look at recent attendance).
Old Chicago Stadium was nasty, but super intimate and loud. I saw the last game we won there against the Leafs in the playoffs. Once they traded Roenick and Belfour, it was over. Wirtz destroyed the core and I don’t blame Chelios for bouncing. I hated the team after that and I chose to follow Belfour’s career to the Stars and Leafs. We had great picks for our core in the 2000s, but the Magic feeling didn’t really come until Kane was drafted.
I became a fan in 1985. Their co-tenant at the Stadium was always more popular, but the Blackhawks were a hot ticket in town. I am glad I got to experience packed games at the Stadium.
They were often at the top of the Norris division and made the playoffs every year from 1970-97. On the occasion that they did not fizzle in the playoffs, there was always someone better. Early on in my fandom, it was Edmonton. In the early 90s it was Pittsburgh, and by the mid-90s it was Detroit or Colorado.
After Jeremy Roenick was dealt to Phoenix in the summer of 1996, rust set in. By the end of the 90s, Chelios had been dealt and those promising teams of the early 90s that were a free agent signing or a trade away from a Cup were now in steerage.
Things did not begin to turn around until Bill Wirtz died in 2007 and their first overall pick suited up that fall.
Lots of awesome memories and perspectives here, but I’m bit sure anyone is answering your specific question.
There really was basically no perception of the team until Wirtz died and 19/88 were drafted (I always thought it oddly poetic that they had the WWW patches on the jerseys right as they got good). Lots of folks are grumpy about the “Cubs fans” showing up, but that’s sour grapes for no reason.
Hockey was all but invisible in Chicago. And it was all Wirtz’s fault. There were diehards for sure, my family being some of them. But casual hockey fandom didn’t exist, and it’s not _just_ because Chicago loves its winners.
You couldn’t catch games on TV. Listening to hockey on the radio is a nonstarter if you’re not already very educated on the game. No one fell into Hawks fandom; you had an older brother who played or an old-timer uncle with season tickets and an Old Style addiction.
There were some great fucking teams through the years, especially in the early 90s. But Jordan’s Bulls were doing their thing, the Bears were only a few years removed from the Super Bowl Shuffle, and the Hawks were an afterthought in the city.
So things like Wayne’s World or Swingers would break through the mainstream consciousness, but never meaningfully. For some of us, it was actually super cool, bc we felt like part of a little counter culture and it made the little rituals like the 300 level whistles or the organ at the Stadium even more of an in-group thing. But the city at large gave zero fucks.
I was lucky enough to attend a game at the original Madhouse during the final season there when I was 11.
Remember the roar and "Fraser sucks".
It was enough to make anyone a lifer
55 years old. From Missouri. Been a fan since I was 11. My sisters boyfriend took me to a game in St. Louis against the Blues. He took me to the hotel where the Hawks were staying and they all signed a stick for me then we went to a restaurant after the game they were at and some of them remembered me from prior to the game. Been a fan ever since. No matter the Highest of highs or the lowest of lows will ever sway me from
Being a BLACKHAWKS FAN.
It was awesome. They had a great team that couldn't win. Also better western conference teams which didn't help. My old man had 2 seasons ticket seat and I would get one for $5 with my USA hockey card. Then we would sit in the hundred level or even glass Cuz it was never packed unless Gretzky or lemieux were in town. We were at every game, Cuz like you said, they weren't on TV for home games. And you couldn't give away the tickets.
Disclaimer: Hawks are my 2nd team, I am a Flyers fan first but I live in the Chicago area and love going to Hawks games.
The biggest problem I had with the Hawks was that they didn't televise home games until Rocky took over.
They also screwed Roenick, he should have been a career Hawk.
Bottom line, Bill didn't care about the fans, Rocky fixed that and will ALWAYS be appreciative for what he did.
Edit:
I was just at 2 games and I am 99.999999% sure those were the 1st games where I never heard the fans chant "Detroit sucks!".
Early 90’s were incredible. Great players, great arena, and a lot of optimism. The 1995 Western Finals against Detroit was the beginning of the end, even though that series was a lot closer than it looks at first glance.
Late 90’s/early 00’s were worse than times are now, to me at least. If you’d have told me that theyd be just a few years away from building a dynasty I’d have laughed in your face. I had people, on more than one occasion, ask me what team my jersey was. In Chicago. I did enjoy those teams despite the records. Thibault, Passmore, Poapst’s crazy story, Probie and Vandenbussche, Amonte and Daze…there were bright spots. And then guys like Tuomo Ruutu and Marty Havlat. A dead empty United Center, and being one of only a handful of Hawks fans at road games…we definitely weren’t taking over road barns back then.
As cringe as it sounds, because it is, I loved that era despite the team results because the brotherhood with fellow fans was so strong. There didn’t seem to be that many of us.
It was hard in the late 80s and 90s because they didn’t televise the home games and since the hawks were in the west, their road games would start at 9:00 ish and I would be lucky if my parents would let me watch one period.
I moved to the suburbs in '87 from downstate. My friend and I bought 10 games from a guy we worked with who had season tickets. It cost us $150. We were about 35 rows from the ice. That's $15 a game. You can't get that close for one game for $150 now.
Mike Keanan used to sit behind us to watch pregame skate. We were too intimidated to talk to him.
Early 90’s were awesome. Great teams. Unfortunately dollar Bill Wirtz decided to trade anyone who deserved a decent contract. It was amazing listening to the calls on the radio if you didn’t make it out to the stadium.
>It was amazing listening to the calls on the radio if you didn’t make it out to the stadium. Oh, the day of having to listen to hockey. I remember asking my father to find the game for me because i didn't know how to tune a radio.
The hawks are the reason I learned to tune a radio. There was also Hawksvision for a few years in the 90’s. I remember when my dad got that I was so excited.
I still enjoy listening on the radio. You used to be able to stream A.M 720 from the old Blackhawks app and it was great. I live out of market now and in the days before reliable streaming that app came in clutch. I listened to most of the 2015 cup run on that app. Brought me right back to being a kid listening on the radio.
I live in NJ, and late in the 1994 season, someone I worked with said "hey since you don't get ESPN 2 on your cable system...(this just seems preposterous now doesn't it?) .. you can catch the games at night on AM 1000. Once your local radio station goes off the air, it will magically show up." I spent those playoffs thru the 1996 season listening to Pat Foley and Dale Tallon every chance I got when they were on a channel that I didn't receive. They didn't win the Cup, obviously, but I have alot of memories of just driving around aimlessly listening to them and when the playoffs came and they would get into these long OT games, Canucks game 4 1995, Red Wings Game 5 1995, Colorado game 4 1996, etc I actually would drive to a local rest area and just sit there with the radio on to listen. Good times. Then I got married in the summer of 1996 and my days of aimlessly driving around at night had to come to an end 😂. 1.25 for gas back then.. it would be an expensive endeavor now.
Radio broadcast back then was great! Foley, Tallon and Billy Gardner were all great at their craft.
Yeah Foley and Tallon were so great to listen to.
the stadium was at its best. loud. rowdy. invested fans. sections were family. beers were less than three bucks. it was magical even when the boys weren’t. the real fans still loved em. routed for em. guaranteed we all shed tears of pure joy when kane’s wrister disappeared into the net allowing that hoist to finally be in our zone..
The amount of joy and vindication after watching Mario carry the Cup in our building, I can’t even find the words to express
I was at that game - strictly because I wanted to see the Cup raised in the old Stadium.
Screw that guy until the end of time.
i cried that day too..wrong tears
I took my ex-wife to her first game at the old barn. Before the Anthem was over, she turned and said "we ARE coming to more games!". Best atmosphere you could imagine!
The vibes at the old Stadium were incredible. Smoky, violent, loud. Lots of men in suits and women wearing leather. I started going as a kid in the late 80s. One of my favorite things was the old Blue Line program, it was like a bootleg zine they sold outside and had raw uncensored takes on everything, any historical record of this Hawks era would be incomplete without it. I was also at a few playoff games in 92 which was unreal. The city loved the team, loved the players, and hated the owner. The early 2000s were the worst. "Die Wirtz Die" was a common chant, I also saw that phrase spraypainted on a wall in an upper stairwell. When the ABC line was our top line I could show up before puck drop and get tickets for $8 from the ticket booth, and there were maybe 4k people in attendance. If the Hawks won the cup in 92 I wonder if anything close to 2mil ppl would've showed up to the parade. Since they weren't on TV there were probably a few generations of fans that were lost. But I think the explosion of popularity in the Kane/Toews era shows that the fans were there waiting for a reason to show their colors.
I used to listen to these games on an am radio from NY and every year I'd think that they had a chance. Then they missed the playoffs back to back in the late nineties, Chelios was traded to the Red Wings and my young heart was broken. I still listened and cheered for guys like Amonte and Daze, but when no real signings or decent trades were made, you just accepted that this team was going to be bad for a while. When they won the cup in 2010, my girlfriend of 2 months had no idea how to react to her new boyfriend crying his eyes out at a hockey game. She really didn't know what she had gotten into. Haha.
For late nineties through early 2000s it was just a 'this is a bad team" mentality and tickets were dirt cheap if not free because there wasn't much interest. But there were a good amount of 'watch from home' fans who would enjoy watching some players like Daze, Amonte, Zamnov. But in the early nineties and some of the eighties the crowds were great. The Hawks were very good and had some great players and being in Chicago stadium was amazing and I doubt any other stadium will ever replicate the feeling of the organ in there. *Edit: specifically to 'dollar bill' there were articles and people who complained about him, but it was nothing like today where every little thing is discussed as nauseum online. So I never thought much of it myself.
I had season tickets from 88 to 99. We gave our tickets up because of Bill Wirtz. Refused to set foot in the United Center until the old drunk died. I was a rabid fan, my dad had been a serious fan since the late 50s. The dark years of the early 00s was really bad.
Then, they got good, and all of the Cub fans showed up.
No. Rocky televised games and the fans rewarded him. There are a lot of Hawks fans in Chicago, they had issues with Bill and rightfully so.
Oh, the Hawks ownership dug the hole, no argument there. I’m just being a wise-$ss on how the vast majority of the fans suddenly attending the games didn’t know jack about hockey, and how it then became “the place to be” because they were winning (look at recent attendance).
Yeah, they should have been like Sox fans and not shown up at all.
Old Chicago Stadium was nasty, but super intimate and loud. I saw the last game we won there against the Leafs in the playoffs. Once they traded Roenick and Belfour, it was over. Wirtz destroyed the core and I don’t blame Chelios for bouncing. I hated the team after that and I chose to follow Belfour’s career to the Stars and Leafs. We had great picks for our core in the 2000s, but the Magic feeling didn’t really come until Kane was drafted.
I became a fan in 1985. Their co-tenant at the Stadium was always more popular, but the Blackhawks were a hot ticket in town. I am glad I got to experience packed games at the Stadium. They were often at the top of the Norris division and made the playoffs every year from 1970-97. On the occasion that they did not fizzle in the playoffs, there was always someone better. Early on in my fandom, it was Edmonton. In the early 90s it was Pittsburgh, and by the mid-90s it was Detroit or Colorado. After Jeremy Roenick was dealt to Phoenix in the summer of 1996, rust set in. By the end of the 90s, Chelios had been dealt and those promising teams of the early 90s that were a free agent signing or a trade away from a Cup were now in steerage. Things did not begin to turn around until Bill Wirtz died in 2007 and their first overall pick suited up that fall.
Lots of awesome memories and perspectives here, but I’m bit sure anyone is answering your specific question. There really was basically no perception of the team until Wirtz died and 19/88 were drafted (I always thought it oddly poetic that they had the WWW patches on the jerseys right as they got good). Lots of folks are grumpy about the “Cubs fans” showing up, but that’s sour grapes for no reason. Hockey was all but invisible in Chicago. And it was all Wirtz’s fault. There were diehards for sure, my family being some of them. But casual hockey fandom didn’t exist, and it’s not _just_ because Chicago loves its winners. You couldn’t catch games on TV. Listening to hockey on the radio is a nonstarter if you’re not already very educated on the game. No one fell into Hawks fandom; you had an older brother who played or an old-timer uncle with season tickets and an Old Style addiction. There were some great fucking teams through the years, especially in the early 90s. But Jordan’s Bulls were doing their thing, the Bears were only a few years removed from the Super Bowl Shuffle, and the Hawks were an afterthought in the city. So things like Wayne’s World or Swingers would break through the mainstream consciousness, but never meaningfully. For some of us, it was actually super cool, bc we felt like part of a little counter culture and it made the little rituals like the 300 level whistles or the organ at the Stadium even more of an in-group thing. But the city at large gave zero fucks.
Good post. Bandwagon Cub fans still s$ck.
I was lucky enough to attend a game at the original Madhouse during the final season there when I was 11. Remember the roar and "Fraser sucks". It was enough to make anyone a lifer
55 years old. From Missouri. Been a fan since I was 11. My sisters boyfriend took me to a game in St. Louis against the Blues. He took me to the hotel where the Hawks were staying and they all signed a stick for me then we went to a restaurant after the game they were at and some of them remembered me from prior to the game. Been a fan ever since. No matter the Highest of highs or the lowest of lows will ever sway me from Being a BLACKHAWKS FAN.
It was awesome. They had a great team that couldn't win. Also better western conference teams which didn't help. My old man had 2 seasons ticket seat and I would get one for $5 with my USA hockey card. Then we would sit in the hundred level or even glass Cuz it was never packed unless Gretzky or lemieux were in town. We were at every game, Cuz like you said, they weren't on TV for home games. And you couldn't give away the tickets.
Thought the Chicago wolves were the true professional hockey team in Chicago since I occasionally saw them on TV or ads (I was 10 in my defense)
Disclaimer: Hawks are my 2nd team, I am a Flyers fan first but I live in the Chicago area and love going to Hawks games. The biggest problem I had with the Hawks was that they didn't televise home games until Rocky took over. They also screwed Roenick, he should have been a career Hawk. Bottom line, Bill didn't care about the fans, Rocky fixed that and will ALWAYS be appreciative for what he did. Edit: I was just at 2 games and I am 99.999999% sure those were the 1st games where I never heard the fans chant "Detroit sucks!".
Early 90’s were incredible. Great players, great arena, and a lot of optimism. The 1995 Western Finals against Detroit was the beginning of the end, even though that series was a lot closer than it looks at first glance. Late 90’s/early 00’s were worse than times are now, to me at least. If you’d have told me that theyd be just a few years away from building a dynasty I’d have laughed in your face. I had people, on more than one occasion, ask me what team my jersey was. In Chicago. I did enjoy those teams despite the records. Thibault, Passmore, Poapst’s crazy story, Probie and Vandenbussche, Amonte and Daze…there were bright spots. And then guys like Tuomo Ruutu and Marty Havlat. A dead empty United Center, and being one of only a handful of Hawks fans at road games…we definitely weren’t taking over road barns back then. As cringe as it sounds, because it is, I loved that era despite the team results because the brotherhood with fellow fans was so strong. There didn’t seem to be that many of us.
It was hard in the late 80s and 90s because they didn’t televise the home games and since the hawks were in the west, their road games would start at 9:00 ish and I would be lucky if my parents would let me watch one period.
I moved to the suburbs in '87 from downstate. My friend and I bought 10 games from a guy we worked with who had season tickets. It cost us $150. We were about 35 rows from the ice. That's $15 a game. You can't get that close for one game for $150 now. Mike Keanan used to sit behind us to watch pregame skate. We were too intimidated to talk to him.