This is the part where I start talking. I'm really excited to have been welcomed to Hockeenight with open arms and a glass full of a certain wormwood-based liqueur. I've been a Blackhawks fan since I was a youngster around the age of 11 and despite having never actually played the sport it remains my absolute favorite to watch and discuss. I can vividly remember listening to Pat Foley and Dale Tallon on the home radio broadcast on my clock radio when I was supposed to be asleep. I remember during the lockout-shortened 1994-95 season when the Blackhawks went on a deep playoff run, I would cut out all of the Blackhawk photos from the paper as part of what became a collage that spanned an entire wall in my room. 

Little did I know the likes of Kyle Calder, Mark Bell and Tyler Arnason weren't going to continue the Blackhawks' tradition of making the playoffs every single season. What was supposed to be one of the easier feats in sports became a rarity. The Blackhawks were a bottom feeder. I remember going to games where I'd have entire sections to myself. I remember trying to clap and yell during the anthem and people looked at me like I'd lost my damn mind. Talking about the Blackhawks was just something that was seldom done in Chicago at that point and since Twitter hadn't been invented, I walked a lonely path. 

A few years later, as Rocky Wirtz made his imprint on the Blackhawks franchise and helped turn them from the worst franchise in all of professional sports into one of the best, I was lucky enough to get involved in a of the nine game season ticket packages. You can find me in my infamous red Calder jersey in section 323. I like to wear it because a) it was fucking expensive and b) it's a nice reminder of the years when the Blackhawks became a forgotten entity in this town. It's like a big red scar (with a fight strap) that won't let me forget that number 19 wasn't always worn by Jonathan Toews and before Marian Hossa and Patrick Kane we had Pavel Vorobiev and Reto Von Arx. 

I've been lucky enough to be asked to write for this fine decent mediocre blog and I'm excited to go through the next chapter in Blackhawk history with all twelve of you. Together. We're going to celebrate the ups and downs and...ah, who am I kidding? They're going to make me write up all the recaps for games against the Predators. 

I think I speak for everyone when I say we're all chomping at the bit to get the season started. I don't mean training camp where every asshole on the 'red team' who scores a couple of goals on Alec Richards gets 2,000 tweets about him being the next Ben Smith who frankly has nowhere to go but down...see? We need real games before we end up pulling strangers' shirts over their heads and pummeling their faces into a jelly. I can't wait to get started. Go Hawks.