By Paul M. Banks
Current Chicago Blackhawks right wing Adam Burish was recently named the 26th most eligible single by Chicago magazine. The former Wisconsin Badger (and Facebook friend to TSB) showed off his bachelor pad, complete with upscale wine fridge, for local NBC cameras recently and also talked about groupies at the second annual Hawks Fan Convention in Chicago last weekend.
Of all the panel discussions I heard on Sunday July 19th, the second most memorable moment (the first being the announcement that Chicago will wear their black Winter Classic jerseys as their official third sweater next season) was Burish being asked “What do you do when a fan approaches you and tries to make out with you?” Burish half-jokingly responded, “What does she look like?”
In the segment entitled “Chicago’s Most Wanted,” Burish was joined by Brian Campbell, Patrick Sharp, Tony Amonte and Steve Larmer to converse about being a celebrity in a sports-obsessed town. To further validate the point of this exercise, the Continental Ballroom packed in a standing room only crowd to hear this topic. When asked about groupies Burish said at the beginning of his response “Is this G, PG, PG-13, Is this X? You need to direct me where to go.” The panel host, WGN’s Steve Cochran, responded “Given the high amount of 11-year olds and Grandmothers here, let’s go with PG for now.”
“There’s some crazy female fans, you see them when you’re on the road, but I have to give some of these girls some credit, because they know what time you’re getting in. I don’t know what time practice is half the time, but they know. They know what time I’m getting in, they know where practice is. They know things about my Mom, my sister that I don’t even know. But whatever, it’s cool, it’s funny. These girls aren’t doing any harm, they’re not disrespecting anybody. Except for the ones that are knocking down your door at 4 in the morning,” Burish said regarding the stalkers and drunken groupies of the hockey world.
When Brian “Soupy” Campbell was asked the same question about drunken groupies, he did what anyone who has been properly advised by a PR professional would do- deflect the conversation completely away from anything remotely provocative and interesting, and instead re-frame the conversation in a manner family-friendly enough for Disney. “The practice rink got pretty crazy at times this year, trying to get from the rink to your car. I just don’t like it when the big guy pushes the kid out of the way, because you always try to get to the kids first- they’re important that way,” Soupy said. His statement, which utterly ignored the question at hand, was met with thunderous applause.
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I included the Elisha Cuthbert picture in there because she is probably the most famous hockey groupie in the world
Carrie Underwood is dating some hockey player… Burish rakes the tail I bet… and was probably not half-joking at all when he said, “What does she look like?”… Maybe I should wear my Burish t-shirt jersey more often…
I was a fan of Burish before this wonderful article, Paul, but I think he pulled such great PR lines out of his hat on this topic, that he’s going to move up a natch on the cool scale. Hockey players got it going on from a girl’s perpective. I don’t know why exactly….what sets the sport apart…but I’ll think and get back to you on it.