If the Blackhawks keep their word and don’t try to play too pretty at home, they will dispatch the Sharks to make their first Stanley Cup finals since 1992.
If they win it all, this is going to sound really weird at the celebration rally in a few weeks: “Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for the architect of the 2009-2010 NHL champion Chicago Blackhawks …
Florida Panthers general manager Dale Tallon!”
Consider my Hawks buzz stepped on. Only temporarily, but stepped on.
Wishing Tallon well with his new assignment this week made me want to pull the covers over my head. We should look at the Hawks’ willingness to do unpopular things, however, as a positive. Good leadership in business insists on it.
I encourage the other four franchises in town to hold the bar as high as the Hawks did with Tallon, whose terminable offense was bungled paperwork.
More Top Picks Best French Door Air Fryers
Tallon also dropped the ball signing goaltender Cristobal Huet to a $22.5 million deal two years ago.
He also fails to have the surname “Bowman.”
I wish Tallon could take a carload of local decision-makers with him.
There are several whose dismissals and exiles would delight many. And they all would be far more deserving of the kick to the curb than Tallon was.
That would include Bears GM Jerry Angelo and coach Lovie Smith, John Paxson of the Bulls, Cubs GM Jim Hendry and the White Sox’s duo of GM Ken Williams and manager Ozzie Guillen.
Instead, it’s Tallon on the outside looking in. Listeners who heard the interview with him Wednesday on WSCR-AM 670 could feel that Tallon is both brimming with pride and still devastated over his dismissal last summer. He did his best to keep the stiff upper lip, but it’s clear that Tallon always will regard these Hawks as family.
They treated him that way too, when they took a long bus ride — as an entire team — to Gravenhurst, Ont., to make an unannounced appearance at the wake for Tallon’s father, Stan, in November of 2008.
A lot of athletes and execs give lip service to chemistry and caring for each other. Believe it when you hear it from hockey people.
These Hawks are Tallon’s team. Everywhere. High-round picks Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, perhaps this year’s Conn Smythe winner, were Tallon finds. So were home run free agents Brian Campbell and Marian Hossa. So are the supporting players acquired via trade, Andrew Ladd and Kris Versteeg. So are the middle- and late-round picks.
Tallon built the only thing that’s good in this town right now. It’s also the only team that is predominantly likeable, if that sort of thing matters to you. It seems unjust that the architect of the Chicago team that right now is closest to winning a championship —by a mile — isn’t anywhere but in the center ring.
Instead, it’s southern Florida for Tallon. Exiled. For lack of administrative crispness.
Here’s to Tallon for his enormous contributions. And here’s to the next local owner who’s willing to pull the plug on somebody who isn’t meeting expectations.
Sponsored Link: Buy Blackhawks playoff tickets and save 5% with code CT5