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:

So, I'm sitting home, minding my own business when all of a sudden, the phone rings.  It's the guy from Hockeenight whose name I can never remember and he says he needs me to cover the game tonight because Forklift has tickets to the ballet and he's taking the wife out for white wine spritzers.  I told him this is pretty short notice, but I'll get down to Chicago Stadium and pick up the press pass.  Then he tells me that the Blackhawks aren't at home, they're in Nashville, and I should just watch the game on the TV.  Now there's about 100 things wrong with that statement, but I take issue with him over covering the game while not being there.  I mean, this ain't the New York Times.  But he says if I don't do it, he'll let my 4 ex-wives know about the influx of cash we got from Haliburton, so here I am.  Here's how a pro covers a game:

You always have to be aware of the revenge angle, so the first thing I do is take a look at the Nashville Predators roster and note that they've got a few ex-Hawks on there, like Scott Nichol, JP DuPont and Gary Suter.  I notice that Suter looks pretty good for a 44 year old.  They've also got some guys with funny names, like Radek Bonk and Jordin Tootoo, who sounds like he'd be more at home watching the ballet with Forklift.

Nashville surprises me, there's a lot of people in the stands, especially when you consider that the Oilers played their playoff game that day, and Graceland is only 3 hours away.  I once spent an evening in St. Louis with Elvis and Harry Caray.  Terrific guy, The King, he died too young.

I notice that there are some new lines that run from either side of each goal to the end boards.  I assume that the league finally listened to the bleating of that idiot Pocklington and that no one is allowed to touch Gretzky within this area.

Matt Walker and the Polish guy aren't looking good in the early going.  The traffic barrels on the Edens are more effective defenders.

This Shea Weber kid looks pretty good.  He scores his 13th goal of the year, which is supposed to be an impressive number, but Orr would have retired if he got only 13 in a season.  Still, he's not bad.  Although his old man Pete was the greatest bowler who ever lived, so he's not even the best athlete in the family.

So far, the Blackhawks best chance has come from the red-headed defenseman, who skated in and beat the goalie but drew the iron on the crossbar. 

The Burish kid scores a nice little goal, picking up a rebound off a good rush from the Polack.  Good for him.  He's got some nice hair too.  I'll always say that the downfall of the NHL was the mandatory helmet rule.  The Bohunk kid looks like he probably spends an hour and a half a night on his hair.  Seems like a shame to cover it up like that.  Now Barry Trotz, that guy should be forced to wear a helmet.

The Bonk guy scores a goal to put Nashville up 3-1, and I run out of Rock & Rye.  You'd think a guy named Bonk would be a hitter, but he seems to be more of a scorer.  The good news is, I have a stash of vintage 1960's Schlitz, so I switch to that.  Slats never runs out of Beer.

The Hawks finally start generating some offense by crashing the net in the 3rd, but this Finish guy in goal for the Predators is weathering the storm.  He's denied the little guy with the big number several times and the Hawks are going to have to pull their goalie with 2:00 left.

Donald Legwand ices it with an empty netter (his second goal of the game).  Hawks lose 4-1, the French goaltender looking pretty good, except for maybe that 3rd goal.  The real problem would be the power play, where Chicago was 0-6, and looked especially bad in the first period, which was dominated by Nashville.

Incidentally, I'm sure you all expected to hear some sort of angry rant from me about there being a hockey team Nashville, while places like Winnepeg go without.  Well, you came to the wrong place.  I've been to Winnepeg, and there's nothing there.  As a newspaper man, the one thing you hope for is that teams get put in interesting cities.  Nashville sounds like a lot of fun, so I hope they keep a franchise there.  In fact, if I was still working the beat, I'd petition this Betteman idiot to move the New Jersey Devils to Fort Lauderdale.  Who the hell wants to spend an evening in Newark?  Nobody, that's who.

So tomorrow the Blackhawks will take the Predators on again in the one of the last great traditions left in the NHL, the home and home series.  I'm sure one of the other fancy boys who work for this site will give you all the pertinent information.


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