'(Bleepin')
right, Chicago!' Blackhawks celebrate another Cup Mark Lazerus from The Chicago Sun-Times, June 18, 2015
As Patrick Kane called over his longtime running buddy
Jonathan Toews to bring out the Stanley Cup in front of tens of thousands of
screaming, red-clad, bleary-eyed fans, the Blackhawks’ now-familiar postgame
victory song, “Chelsea Dagger” Blackhawks
Goal Song (Chelsea Dagger) - YouTube (38 seconds) blared over the speakers
at Soldier Field.
They indeed got that old thing back. For a third time in six
seasons. But it never seems to get old. Not for the players. And certainly not
for the city.
“It’s amazing,” Marian Hossa said. “People here in this city
are just proving they’re fanatics when it comes to hockey.”
After a parade that drew countless fans downtown on a
weekday morning, lined dozens deep to catch a glimpse of the team buses, more
than 60,000 people packed Soldier Field to celebrate yet another Stanley Cup.
It was another raucous affair. Corey Crawford cursed. Of course. Kris Versteeg
and Joakim Nordstrom sang. Or, at least, tried to. The Hawks handed the Stanley
Cup around as red confetti whipped around them and “Chelsea Dagger” played. And
there was already big talk about a fourth Cup on the horizon.
“Let’s keep this red machine rolling, baby,” Duncan Keith
said. “Let’s do it again. Four sounds better than three.”
The funniest moment, naturally, came from Crawford, who
despite his assurances to the contrary, reprised his “(Bleepin’) right,
Chicago!” line from the 2013 rally, with team president John McDonough standing
right behind him. But the most poignant moment came from Versteeg. His attempt
at rapping at the 2010 rally is legendary for all the wrong reasons. But his
symbolic handing of the team’s championship belt to CJ Reif, son of the team’s
assistant equipment manager, Clint Reif, who died at age 34 on Dec. 21, was
even more memorable.
As Keith said earlier in the rally, “This one’s for Reifer.”
While the parade has become routine for some of the Hawks —
eight of them are three-time champions — it was overwhelming for the
first-timers. You could see it on 40-year-old Kimmo Timonen’s smiling face, and
in 23-year-old Trevor van Riemsdyk’s wide-eyed grin. And for one Hawks player
in particular, the first Chicago-area native to win the Stanley Cup with the
Hawks, it was even more special.
“My family was in the streets last time,” Lemont native
Scott Darling told CSN Chicago. “And they were on the bus with me today. It’s
just unbelievable.”
In 2010, they packed Michigan Avenue. In 2013, they filled
up Grant Park. This time around, they flocked to Soldier Field and lined the
city streets just to see the Hawks and their hardware. The rally was the capper
to a three-day long Cup crawl for the Hawks that made stops at Wrigley Field
and seemingly every bar in the city.
“If there’s something we’ve missed so far, I’d like to
know,” Toews said.
Kane even joked at the rally: “I know you said I’ve been
growing up, but watch out for me for the next week.”
But the celebration is just getting started. The Cup will
travel with players and staff throughout North America and Europe, but it’ll be
a fixture in Chicago, too. And for Hawks fans, every time they see it, it feels
like the first time.
“What a team,” Patrick Sharp said. “What a city.”
Corey
Crawford drops F-bomb (again) at Chicago ... Nick Logan from The Global News, June 18, 2015
Stanley Cup champs the Chicago Blackhawks were cheered by
their hometown crowd in the Windy City Thursday morning after their triumph
over the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The 2-0 win in Game 6 of the series Monday night was the
Blackhawks’ third Stanley Cup win in six years but the first on home ice since
1938.
And for the second time in as many rallies, the team’s
Châteauguay, Quebec-born goalie Corey Crawford celebrated the victory with some
colourful language, despite a promise to keep it clean.
“F**in’ right, Chicago,” the 30-year-old shouted to the sea
of red jersey-clad fans at Soldier Field.
“I’m going to try to be a little more professional,”
Crawford said a day earlier, according to the Chicago Tribune. “I owe it to all the mothers in the
crowd.”
It’s not known if any mothers or fathers in the crowd rushed
to cover their children’s ears, but they may have been familiar with Crawford’s
affinity for the expletive.
Even Winnipeg-born left winger Patrick Sharp warned it might
be wise to invest in a muzzle for Crawford this year, after an f-bomb at the
mic two years ago.
At the 2013 victory rally, after the Blackhawks won 3-2 over
the Boston Bruins in the last 90 seconds of Game 6, Crawford (sans playoff
beard) exclaimed the exact same phrase.
More than 60,000 free tickets were made available for the
fans to attend the victory rally, where team captain Jonathan Toews, also a
Winnipeger, got a hero’s welcome after being the leading scorer for the team
this season.
“We all grew up dreaming of winning the Stanley Cup and to
be able to be able to hoist this thing, but to do it on home ice and in front
of you guys, in front of our fans, and to share this with you guys, the best
fans in the world, doesn’t get any better than this.”
“Maybe the only way it does get better is if we win four,”
Towes said.
All three Blackhawks Stanley Cup wins in the past six
seasons were with 27-year-old Toews as captain.
And if you thought you’d seen enough mentions of Winnipeg in
this post, the so-called Chicago of the North, has another hometown boy to brag
about this season — defenceman and Conn Smythe Trophy winner Duncan Keith. Keith was the
“unanimous choice” for MVP of the playoffs, according to NHL.com.
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