Off to the Kraken.

It's basically back the Bill Wirtz era of the early 2000s. Can't think of when the OrganEyeZation was in a worse place...

It's like they don't want anybody to watch anymore.

I will end up watching Kraken games on ESPN+ just for Forslund and Eddie.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

I can't believe that was 14 years ago.

Wow

It seems that old Eddie O. doesn't want to chop wood and carry water for a team that allows a known sexual predator to prey on one of their young players and covers it up, and then has the unmitigated gaul to deny deny and deny until they are forced to settle and then says "ooops our bad." Then allows that same scumbag predator to go and coach more young players and doesn't say shit about it. Like they took that cue from the 1970 and 80 Catholic Church.

what an unreasonable person, yea it must be because old Eddie is greedy, yea that is it. Let's write a press release and use a term like "disappointed"


smart move by a smart guy, Hawks do not deserve him, hopefully the Lisle and Naperville fans that pay the absurd prices to watch this dumpster fire of a team skate will wise up, but probably not.

later
sabu

I wasn't planning on watching any Hawks games for the foreseeable future anyways. Besides, Olczyk doesn't do much for me anyways. He's fine but doesn't really stand out from the majority of his colleagues. He's been a terrible interview about the Hawks ever since they won their last Cup. He's just like the team-employed reporters and writers- tows the company line and rarely provides any interesting insight.

I think Hawks fans should consider this a positive. Get someone young and fresh with a lot of energy in there. What is Sharpie up to? Seemed like he was on a fast track with NBC Sports before they shut down the network.

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

Listening to AM1000 a little bit yesterday and today, the hosts were very indignant about Olczyk leaving the Blackhawks. I think that has more to do with them being friends with him than it does with the move hurting the franchise in a lasting, significant way.

Today it is Bernsie on child rape like the old Penn State days.

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I like Eddie. He's a nice guy.

Parkins was making this out to be a HUGE deal. Sure, to the die hard blackhawk fans it is. But I'm not one of those. So I really don't care. I think most are like me. We only watch the Hawks when they are awesome.

Eddie's act has been tired for a long time. "Always a good idea to put the puck on net" one minute, and then "oh he needed to hold the puck just a fraction of a second more" the next. Well if it is always a good idea to put the puck on net, then why ever wait?

Or how about this line you hear a dozen times per game, "tired defensemen on the ice"?

It had gotten to the point where him and Pat were just on replay each game. Normally tandems (like Pat Hughes and Coomer) get better with time together. But these two just got more annoying as time went on, "three, three, three". And if they did a shoutout one more time to the "great camera crew" I was going to puke. The games often had recurring errors with on screen graphics among many other camera and sound related issues.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

I think it will be Colby Cohen, although I hope not.

It sucks, but I'm not surprised. He wasn't going to stick around after Pat got pushed out. I would expect Adam Burish to be the next guy as kind of a poor man's in-house Paul Bissonnette; reportedly the new management wants to get "younger and cooler."

I know people complain about them because of the soft hostage situation of RSN telecasts, but we had one of the best booths in the league if not the best with Pat, Eddie, John, and Troy.

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Big truth.

Same for Joniak and Thayer - they get shit on, but they are better than 90% of their peers.

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Not a mult.

mmm, can't vouch for that one, but we're in dire straits if Joniak is better than most of the league.

I guess it's just as well that Olczyk landed in Seattle, because whenever people complained about the Hawks booth and you'd ask them whose was better, the answer was always the Stars or the Hurricanes. I don't know what made everyone decide everything about the Hurricanes was so great, but there you go, he's with the old Hurricanes guy now. Enjoy. (As for the Stars, everything that annoys you about Olczyk, Daryl Reaugh does twice as much. The reddit/HFboards hivemind is a powerful thing.)

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Joniak does his job well. His voice just doesn’t have the gravitas.

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I was focusing more on the pairing.

For instance, on the Bengals radio broadcasts, Dan Hoard is a good PBP guy, but Dave Lapham’s nuclear meatball color commentary ruins the whole broadcast. Also, the shitshow in DC is about as brutal as it gets.

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Not a mult.

And from Eddie's perspective, kind of stupid of him to make this move at his age. How much more did he get from Seattle? Probably not that much more.

Now he has to leave his home town for 6 months, get a new condo. That's money he wouldn't have had to spend. I'm sure he'll keep his Chicago home too. Wife has to move. He's away from his family and friends He's gotta find a new doctor in Seattle. He's recovering from Cancer. So I'm sure he had a good doctor here.

Seems kind of stupid to me to make this move.

I 100% agree. All the little catch-phrases and almost robotic responses are predictable after you've listened to him for a while. I don't dislike him but Olczyk is not funny or that interesting. I mostly like announcers and across sports they will grow on me and I almost take comfort in the familiarity of listening to them. For example, I enjoy all the Nascar announcers across Fox and NBC and greatly enjoy the NBC announcers and analysts for cycling. But Olczyk is just the epitome of dull, uninspiring sports commentary for me.

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

The fill ins they had this past year were terrible and it wasn't because of inexperience.

Huh?
This is a no-brainer. There is zero reason for Eddie or anyone with any kind of competence to want anything to do with the Blackhawks. Not just the Beach situation....the team itself is going to suck ass for at least 3 years.

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Edzo is overrated, not as much as Emrick who's voice always reminded me of Tennesse Tuxedo, but they both go out of their way to copy the Hockey Night in Canada style where the broadcasters mention the cities the younger players are from, think it was to try to pump up US born players, but it rings hollow and seems gimmicky. The game is, was, and always will be in the blood of Canadians who grow up playing the game, but it's still primarily a rich kids game here in the US, except in places like Minnesota where there are strong high school programs.

Foley obviously lost a step, but he was always better when the Hawks were winning, or when he did playoff games. Doing regular season games for a terrible Hawks team often created an environment where he would not follow the play and get into the exact same discussions with Eddie to fill time until the game mercifully ended.

The franchise is entering into some of the darkest days in team history, the on ice product will be terrible, and there will be no reason to tune in and listen, even if just for nostalgia, it will take years and years to rebuild any type of fanbase. Interesting to see the Wirtz and McKaskey families both fail so spectacularly at the exact same time, really exposes the ineptitude of both ownership groups.