If you’ve been to the United Center for any of the Blackhawks’ preseason games you’ve noticed something new. Something terrible. Something that sounds like it belongs at a block party in the seventh circle of hell. A few times a game, during commercial breaks, you hear the familiar sounds of rock music over the public address system. But something’s not right. Why does this Alice in Chains song sound so off key? Why are there no words? And that’s when you see them: three of the grungiest looking meatballs forming a power trio of sonic diarrhea quarantined in their own little corner of the 200 level. Unfortunately this set up prevented me from snapping some action shots including the guitarist doing what I think was supposed to be an Angus Young impression.

I really can’t fathom what the Blackhawks were thinking when they decided to hire a live rock band to play during breaks. Fork likes to claim they’re a metal band but playing the intro to “Man in the Box” and then segueing into “You Shook Me All Night Long” does not a metal band make. Besides, who among us hasn’t taken in some hockey at the United Center and wondered how much better the experience would be if they could hear an unemployed stoner wank out the riff from “Are You Gonna Go My Way”?

It seems the Blackhawks have gone ahead and decided to reinforce the stereotype that most hockey fans are long haired, homeless looking failures with a penchant for bloodlust, alcohol and loud music. Obviously, that’s not what hockey fans are all about nor do I think many people are insulted by the insinuation. Even if we remove all of those connotations from this experiment, which I truly hope this is, then why on Earth would the Hawks hire three high school dropouts to play horrible music live? They’re bad enough musicians as is but factor in the sound issues they were having and it makes things even worse. I was sitting directly across the stadium from where they were playing and the mic would cut out on the drums and guitar so that they sounded like a bunch of three-fingered kids trying to play Rock Band.

There are still so many unanswered questions. Who gave this idea the go ahead? Who pitched the idea that the fans wanted to hear a live band? I thought the Hawks had struck a nice Pellico to Music ratio after that short-lived experiment where they tried to phase Frank Pellico out entirely. I mean you just don’t mess with Frank - he’s a Blackhawks tradition.

When it was decided that they were going to bring in a band, why settle on these three guys? I realize that an established band isn’t going to play a 41 gig residency at a hockey arena but they didn’t have to hire the Pizza Delivery Boy All-Stars. I need answers. Who are these guys? What kind of compromising pictures of John McDonough do they have? Something is amiss here. I have a strong suspicion these guys won’t be around for much, if any of the regular season but the least the Blackhawks could do is give us a bio.

Anyway, since it's Friday and I need to put up a fight, here are the Top 10 Band Fights, according to whoever put this together. Those bad motor scooters in the United Center have a lot to live up to.