The Chicago Blackhawks did not make the playoffs this season and the NHL playoffs are not scratching your itch. What about the Chicago Wolves versus the Rockford Ice dogs in the first round of the AHL playoffs? With the Bulls tanking. The baseball scene in Chicago has not been interesting except when they are rain or snowed out. This is minor league hockey, but it has a lot of local twist to the factor to make this series interesting to watch.

The Wolves arrived on the scene in 1994 when they were founded. It was a time where the Blackhawks were in disarray. The United Center sounded like crickets chirping at each game. At the time, Bill Wirtz was running the team into one of the worst franchises in sports. He broke up a pair of great TV announcers in Bill Gardner and Pat Foley. Bill Gardner became the Wolves TV announcer and to this day he is still calling games for the team. Eventually Wirtz fired Pat Foley who then was reunited with his friend Bill Gardner in the booth for a season with the Wolves. Foley did go back to the Hawks when Bill Wirtz’s son Rocky took over the day to day operations when his father passed away. By that time, the Wolves had established roots in Chicago as a team that will be here for decades to come.

The Wolves played in the IHL at that time. The tickets were affordable and all their games were on the television. Unlike the way Bill Wirtz was handling things. In the beginning, it was cool watching Ex-Blackhawks suit up and skate. Like Al Secord and Troy Murray. Years later, that traitor Chris Chelios. From the last three championships Adam Burish skated with the Wolves along with Brent Sopel, Ben Eager, and Colin Fraser.

 

These guys are animals as the Wolves advertising, advertised for their product. Their animal-like play went on the ice and they made the playoffs almost every year. They even made a crack, “at least one Chicago team can make it to the playoffs,” referring to the Blackhawks on down times. The Wolves came at the right time, the ownership put good teams on the ice and they made going to their games lots of fun and very affordable. The only game seven \ in life I imagine I will ever get to go to was in 1998. It was the Wolves’ first Tuner Cup they won. First any cup they won. At that time I walked into Caron Pirie Scott, went to Ticketmaster, purchased  seven tickets and we went with a group of friends and watched the Wolves beat the Detroit Vipers in that 1998 championship. The place was electric. The Wolves then went on to win another cup in 2000. Then the IHL folded and they moved to the AHL in which they matched their Turner cups with two Calder cups in 2002 and in 2008.

With all that history and all the games rooting on the Wolves, now they play the Rockford Ice dogs. Besides that both teams play their home games in the state of Illinois, this series has more to it than territory. The breakdown is simple: the Rockford Ice Dogs are the Chicago Blackhawks affiliate. Now it becomes Chicago Blackhawks versus the Wolves. The Chicago Wolves are affiliated with the Las Vegas Golden Knights who have been shocking the NHL this season in their very first year in the league. The Ice dog will eventually go from Rockford to Chicago. While the Wolves players will go to Vegas and return to Chicago as the enemy. If you root for the Wolves, you are rooting against your other local team and you’re pulling for the Las Vegas team. It’s a dog eat dog world like Norm Peterson would say and my underwear is made out of milk bones.

The Wolves once were the St.Louis Blues affiliate. Now that it is the Golden Knights, who are not a rival to the Blackhawks, it makes things easier. Detroit Redwings would be a sin against mankind. This is a series where I will root for the Wolves because of all the history I have. All the games I went to. All the games I have watched on TV. I’m invested. Would you shoot your sister if she turned Cubs fan? Now that is a stupid question because everyone knows I’d rather my sister work at a whorehouse than be a Cubs fan. With those standards I have to stick by the Wolves. This series will be a good series as both teams historically do not like each other. If the Wolves do lose the series to the Ice Dogs, it’s still a win-win the way I look at it. In a way, it’s like having two horses in the mix. If the Wolves move on, we will eventually see the Ice Dog players on the United Center Ice as the Black hawks need some young blood to turn around their first season missing the playoffs in almost a decade. This is not Cubs versus the Sox, where you draw a line in the sand and you know where you stand. This playoff series has you rooting for one team, but in a way you are rooting for both teams.