When I talk to people who live outside of the Chicago area about this "quaint" local custom, they're dumbstruck. The Chicago National Hockey League franchise, the "Original Six" Blackhawks, do not broadcast, not even on cable, their home games. Team by team, league by league, professional sports operations dropped their home "black-out" rules, but the Blackhawks carried on with their Mesozoic philosophy of ignoring the most dominant media of our time.
What happened? The Blackhawks now draw only 10,000 fans a game for their games at the United Center, and two generations of fans have been bypassed because the shortsighetness of one man, Blackhawks owner Bill Wirtz, who passed away last month.
Now Wirtz' eldest son, Rocky, has disclosed that he's in talks with Comcast SportsNet, which broadcasts games of the Chicago White Sox, Cubs, and Bulls, to air some "Hawks" game this season.
I took some heat about this blog entry about Bill Wirtz, which I posted the morning of the longtime owner's death, but it seems the "Dollar Bill" Wirtz' son is aware of the key problem this once-proud franchise faces--and wants to fix it.
From the Chicago Blackhawks web site:
We are convinced that it is the appropriate next step to re-energize Chicago hockey fans and create new fans. We are also working on a long term strategy for televising additional home games in the future.
And on the ice, the Blackhawks are off to a good start, they're in second place in the NHL Central Division.
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