Once again, we at Hockeenight have the distinct pleasure and honor of featuring the one and only Slats Radke as a contributor. As you may recall, Slats covered professional hockey for the Chicago American throughout the 1960s and early 70s. He has agreed to offer his unique insight upon occasion. So, with no further ado, Slats Radke:

Summer's almost over, and the hockey season will soon be upon us.

I got back to my place in Elmwood Park after a few weeks in the Dells. Now let me tell you about the Dells. That is where a man can go and just get some top-quality entertainment. Some people think you have to go to New York to see Broadway theatre. The truth is, you can just go up to the Dells and get dinner with your show too.

Unfortunately, since the lake breached, I didn't get the usual top-quality Tommy Bartlett show I'm accustomed to, but they still had acrobats and jugglers. That's the type of entertainment I don't get to see that much anymore, ever since they took Ed Sullivan off the air.

I get back home, and my phone rings. It's one of these meatheads, telling me I need to get an answering machine. I tell him, if you need to talk to me that badly, you'll call back.

He wants me to write about the Hawks' defensemen. He tells me I need to start getting things going for getting media credentials. I tell him, listen kid, I'll get credentials as soon as they let me light up a White Owl in the press box like I've done since before Stosh put a helmet on. Cigars are as much a part of hockey as ice. Back in my day, the players would be out on the ice turning green from the foul air caused by cigar smoke. Did it bother them? Of course it didn't!

In fact, they loved it. Punch Imlach used to pace behind the Toronto bench with an El Producto clenched in his teeth, sometimes flicking ashes down the back of Frank Mahovlich's sweater. then Big M would go out and try burying one behind old Mr. Goalie. This used to be a man's game.

So the Blackhawks' defensemen. They're honoring a couple good ones this season, retiring number 3 for both Pierre Pilote and Keith Magnuson. Pierre was a tough little sonofagun. Won some Norris trophies, and was captain for a few years. Wound up getting traded for Jimmy Pappin, another little sonofagun.

Magnuson would go out and mix it up with every tough guy in the league, like Dave Schultz or Tiger Williams. Another guy who was a Captain. Damn fine individual too. Magnuson left us far too soon. Just like Tommy Bartlett did.

I remember seeing Bartlett's shows back in the sixties. There's not enough times you can see those beautiful girls forming the pyramid on water skis. I'd go see the show, with the water stunts and the acrobats and jugglers. And those guys who would spin plates. A couple of those guys made it to the Ed Sullivan show, which was where the best entertainers in the world would come into your living room on Sunday night. This was before the Smothers Brothers with their crude humor that I didn't much care for.

And that's what I think of the Hawks' defensemen.

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