What Is Blue Line?

      Up until very recently, being a hockey fan in Chicago was akin to admitting you read comic books as an adult, or being upfront about your appreciation for porn, at least before it was cool to do so.  We weren’t just the ugly step sister of the Chicago sports scene, we were the uncle just being released from prison for the second time.  “Why?”  they wondered, if they even knew that Chicago had a hockey team, which most of the city didn’t.  It led to many an awkward conversation, though any conversation with a  Bulls’ fan is generally that why.

      I’ll tell you what attracted us to it, and what still might.  It’s the element of danger.  Hockey had an edge, a feel, a general acceptance that you may come home from the Stadium with an open wound.  Even if you didn’t, you were exhausted afterward, from the rush.  It was the Tool of sports experiences, something that scared most women, and was too cool for most guys.  However, if Bettman is successful in his ideas, (though failure comes to him so easily.) hockey will forever lose this, and we’ll have to fly to England or Italy or Argentina to watch soccer to get it. 

      Part of the reason for this is Hawks’ fans were always angry, and with every reason to be.  Our team was never going to push over the edge to a Cup, we’d just turned our money over to the worst owner in sports, and we knew he didn’t care what we thought or wanted, and was happily depriving us of our anal innocence.  We drank his watered down beer, at least I hope it was water, dodged his uber-rats and cockroaches, any of whom could have taken a life, and we waded through the inch of water in the bathrooms, because we loved hockey, and we loved our Hawks.

      This is what The Blue Line sought to capture in the form of a Game Program. That hockey fans are the most informed of any, but also occasionally vulgar, rude, satirical, and most of all, pissed off at Bill Wirtz.  Eventually, the Blue Line came to represent the voice of rebellion against his policies, but it was so much more.  It was the one place for a clear dissection of what was really going on with the Hawks, because you couldn’t find it in the sports section, at least any section Sassone wasn’t writing in.  It spoke to what every Hawk fan was seeing from the standing room.  It also lampooned opponents we all hated, Doug Gilmour a frequent target, and fandoms we couldn’t stand.  It chronicled fights between the teams, and got you stats you wouldn’t get anywhere else.  This is what we will do our best to recapture in The Committed Indian, to capture the unique voice and attitude that only hockey, and Hawk, fans have.  Well, that and to fund out drinking problem.