FanHouse BillWirtz

So, I'm driving around running some errands and decide to listen to the local sports talk radio. I live in Cincinnati now, so most of the talk is pretty bad. Fans are tired of talking about all the little reasons why the Bengals are bad. The main reason is something that cannot be fixed: owner Mike Brown.

Brown is one of those cheap owners who inherited his organization (from his legend of a father) but doesn't know how to organize it. The story keeps on going, but it just ends with him being a bad owner (just one winning season in the 16 full seasons he has owned the team). Even his Wikipedia page says he is one of the worst owners in professional sports.

On the radio today, they were discussing the sad fact that fans would actually be cheering Mike Brown dying and the team being run by someone else. What? You'd cheer a man's death just so your football team can be better?

It happens. Remember how fans booed during a moment of silence for Chicago Blackhawks owner Bill Wirtz a year ago? Wirtz was very unpopular and fans viewed his death as a great moment for their hockey club.

In today's visual media age, it seems utterly insane that a major sports franchise would not want to have their team's games televised. Getting eyeballs to view the product is key to opening their minds to the wonders of advertising, product placement, and brand loyalty.

Well, as we all know, it has been the long-running joke that the Chicago Blackhawks, under the late Bill Wirtz, refused to televise their home games, expecting that more people would show and shell out $100 for a ticket if they couldn't watch it for free at home.

Well, after a string of incredibly bad seasons, trades, and drafts, Hawks fans just plain stayed away, regardless of whether the games were on TV or not. A whole generation of potential hockey fans was basically sacrificed for Wirtz's bottom line, with most existing Hawks fans seemingly of the older variety. Playing in one of the world's best markets for sports certainly doesn't guarantee success, and the Hawks may be paying for their short-sightedness for many years to come.

Now, The question we all had when Dollar Bill kicked the bucket: Will the Hawks finally join the rest of us in the 21st century and put some games on TV?

The answer: A resounding YES!

In his first major move with the Blackhawks, Rocky Wirtz is trying to do what fans long have asked for: televise the team's home games.

In a Monday memo, Wirtz told employees that Blackhawks representatives met with Comcast SportsNet executives last week about getting some home games on the air during the current season.

A source within Wirtz Corp. says up to a half-dozen home games may be broadcast this season, the majority of them coming by the end of this year. The first game most likely will be Nov. 11 against the Detroit Red Wings.

Wirtz also said the team is working on a "long-term strategy" for televising more home games in future seasons.

A half-dozen isn't much, but it is certainly a good start, especially given how this is essentially a last-second deal. The NHL badly needs Chicago to be a successful market, and giving the fans easier access to the product is an easy first step in repairing the relationship the NHL and the Blackhawks have with the sports fans of Chi-Town. With Patrick Kane and Jon Toews looking like stars-in-the-making, Hawks fans certainly have reason to come out of the woodwork and start cheering again.

To get a sense for how polarizing Chicago Blackhawks owner Bill Wirtz was, one simply needs to utilize that great cultural barometer, the Google Search. "WirtzSucks.com - Bill Wirtz, Worst Owner in Sports," is one of the first entries. "Kill Bill Wirtz" quickly follows, an unfortunately named Web site in light of his death at age 77 this morning. Then there's ESPN's look at the "greediest owners in sports," and a petition to "Remove Bill Wirtz from the Hockey Hall of Fame" and...well, you get the picture.

The Blackhawks Web site was the first to announce that Wirtz had died Wednesday at Evanston Hospital after battling cancer. The AP fills in the details:

The family, led by Arthur Wirtz, purchased the Chicago Blackhawks in 1954. In 1966, William Wirtz became team president. Wirtz was chairman of the Board of Governors of the National Hockey League for 18 years and helped negotiate the merger of the NHL and the World Hockey Association in the late 1970's.

Together with Chicago Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf, Wirtz helped back the construction of the United Center, which replaced the Chicago Stadium, the long-time home for Blackhawks. But since moving there 12 years ago, the Blackhawks have made just four playoff appearances - only two since 1997. The Blackhawks haven't played in the Stanley Cup finals in 15 years. As a result, the Blackhawks - one of the six original NHL teams - average about 12,700 fans per game in an arena that seats 20,500.

Over on WirtzSucks.com, one of the more overtly hostile critics of his ownership of the team, the message board is just starting to attract the kind of conflicted tributes one might expect on a day like this. Mr. Miller, the site owner who I've interviewed in the past, writes that, "it's odd -- now that he's gone, i have to admit, i'm a little bummed. at the very least, i'm not as 'happy' as i always claimed i'd be when this day would come." Another post sums up the feelings for many Chicago hockey fans, I imagine: "GOOD FOR HOCKEY BAD FOR FAMILY...."

Keep an eye on the Chicago Sun-Times Blackhawks page for more details and coverage. The Forechecker was one of the first bloggers to offer a comment on the death, and Eric McErlain's FanHouse piece on Wirtz potentially selling the 'Hawks provides further context on the controversial hockey legend.

The NHL sends out a daily e-digest of news and notes to media each day -- usually a collection of newspaper highlights, upcoming events and the occasional shout out to the online hockey community. At the end of today's edition was a quote from forward Patrick Kane, selected first overall in the 2007 Entry Draft by the Chicago Blackhawks. I don't know where he said it, or who reported it, but I do know it's a hell of a sound byte for a rookie in the Windy City:

"I remember how good Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen were for the Bulls, and who doesn't know about Brian Urlacher and the Bears? Maybe Jonathan (Toews) and I could re-energize Blackhawk fans the way Savard and Larmer did in the 1980s and Jeremy Roenick did later."

I know we're talking about a kid here -- although one that's been compared to a young Pat Lafontaine -- and I know this is the kind of "rah-rah" thing that a newbie on a team that's missed the postseason in eight of the last nine seasons needs to say. But could you imagine a rookie on the Islanders in Kane's position saying, "I remember how good Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were for the Yankees...?" That's some serious Blackhawk bollocks right there...

It's true that Kane and Toews have brought some sunshine to Chicago -- even as they skate under that eternal cloud of melancholia named Bill Wirtz -- with Kane potentially making the big leagues as a true rookie and Toews being mentioned as a candidate to win the first Calder for the Blackhawks since Ed Belfour in 1991. But it's not like we haven't seen rookie duos hyped as the future of a franchise only to see them become footnotes; ask Pavel Brendl and Jamie Lundmark about that. Or for a more Windy City appropriate comparison, ask Eddy Curry and Tyson Chandler.