Wednesday night I attempted to wrap my head around the new baseball season. I failed.
While I enjoy the White Sox and Cubs television crews, I can’t run away from what I am — a hockey fan. More specifically, I am a Pat-aholic always in need of a Foley fix.
More Top Picks Best Professional Pyrography Machines
The Blackhawks and Blues were knotted 1-1 with a little more than 12 minutes to play in the first period when I grabbed the remote. Timing is everything.
” David Bolland for Dustin Byfluglien, the trailer is (Patrick) Kane. He’s got it. Kane, with the backhander. (Chris) Mason the save, rebound, they scooore!
” Ben Eager came out of the penalty box, went directly to the net and it’s 2-1.”
That’s better. Boston Pops to AC/DC.
For more than 25 years, Foley has been a welcome guest in basements, bars and cars. There isn’t a broadcaster in town more synonomous with the team he calls.
Whatever seed Chicago grabs in the Western Conference following Sunday’s curtain closer against Detroit, Foley and analyst Eddie Olczyk get as high of marks as anybody with the Hawks. Foley is as entrenched in local hockey as anybody, his tenure as the voice of the team now more than doubling that of Lloyd Petit, whose popularity was boosted by perennial Stanley Cup contenders with colorful stars such as Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita and Tony Esposito.
Foley had an over-the-hill Phil Housley. He had Mark Bell. And Radim Vrbata.
Foley’s star burned brighter than the team’s. Maybe that was the reason the previous regime foolishly whacked him four years ago. His return to the booth last season was almost as welcome as the Hawks’ return to relevance. Timing is everything.
“This team reminds me a lot of the Hawks teams from the mid-to-late ’80s and early ’90s,” Foley told me before a recent win over Calgary. “They do everything together. There aren’t any cliques. That’s important in the ultimate team game.
“I don’t know if Joel (Quenneville) would like being called a player’s coach, but he is. He’s given those young guys a lot of rope.”
Forever a Spartan (he thought the officiating was overzealous in Michigan State’s loss to Butler in the Final Four), Foley doesn’t like to think about his lofty status. He’s more tickled that his parents, Bob and Mary, get to see their son doing what he does as well as anybody.
Olczyk, a guy who won a Cup with the Rangers in ’94 and also coached the Penguins, is quick with plaudits.
“Sometimes I catch myself kind of in awe,” Olczyk confessed. “I’m sitting next to Pat Foley. He’s the best.”
It is a mutual admiration society.
“Eddie’s amazing,” Foley said. “He sees the entire ice and knows, before we go to replay, where everybody was.”
Count Hall of Famers among Foley’s fans.
“We started together,” Denis Savard said. “He calls a great game and has a great sense of humor. He is truly a Blackhawk.”
Foley’s voice will be silenced if the Hawks again advance to the conference finals. Long-suffering Hawks fans will surely survive it if the club claims its first championship since ’61, but there’s just something wrong with the prospect of the team’s potential signature moment not being called by its potent signature voice.
NBC brings a nonpartisan voice to its coverage. And the Blackhawks have no plans to displace WGN-AM 720’s John Wiedeman with Foley, although Hawks marketing whiz Jay Blunk insists Foley will have a presence at the United Center.
Roaming the United Center, no microphone in hand, makes Foley a bit jumpy.
“I’m like a lost puppy,” he said.
More Top Picks Generators
I’ll find him. And when I do, I’ll buy him a beer or two, maybe feed the human jukebox a few quarters to hear the Irish tenor belt out “Niemi!” at just the right moment. Timing really is everything.
Dan McNeil is host of the “The Danny Mac Show,” weekdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on WSCR-AM 670.
Sponsored Link: Buy Blackhawks playoff tickets and save 5% with code CT5