By Paul M. Banks
It’s been an exciting first few weeks for Patrick Kane and his Chicago Blackhawks’ teammates. Chicago is off to a decent start, currently third in the Western Conference with 11 points and a 5-3-1 record. Kane has been a huge factor towards achieving that success, leading the team in shots on goal with 32. Chicago itself is second in the NHL in shots. And like Wayne Gretzky famously said “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Kane is also second on the team lead in assists and points. There’s been quite a few Kane/Hawks stories flying around the world wide web during this October, here’s some of the best.
-Huet Lewis and the News
The major buzz surrounding the Blackhawks this week didn’t concern there stand-out offense, or their understated, but solid defense. Instead the focus has been on the goaltending, or lack their off. You can pretty much make Cristobal Huet’s new first name “embattled” or at least add the adjective to the beginning of his name, as the local press is blaming him for the Hawks being in third and not in first. And with his nearly $5.625 million per season salary, yet extremely low .844 save percentage it’s hard to argue against the consensus of the mainstream media.
Huet himself is not, he was quoted in this article by the Sun-Times’ Steve Tucker
”I can blame only myself,” Huet said Saturday night following a 4-3 defeat to the Dallas Stars. ”Right now, I feel like I let the team down. I have to see this as just a bump in the road. There were times I really looked bad tonight. I didn’t have it.”
-The following game, Huet was replaced by backup Antti Niemi, who put up slightly better numbers, including a .903 save percentage, but still lost to Vancouver 3-2. It was the first meeting of the two teams since Kane’s most famous professional contest. Kane recorded his first career hat trick against the Vancouver Canucks on May 11, 2009. The Blackhawks won the game 7-5, and clinched their spot to the Western Conference Final for the first time since 1995. After the game, Kane told the Chicago Sun-Times that he was “fired up” after Canucks defenseman Willie Mitchell claimed that Kane “couldn’t play five-on-five.”
Although Kane was one of the few people to solve Vnacouver goaltender Roberto Luongo, in that game and all year, Kane failed to enter the red light district in this game
-Patrick Kane Quote of the Week
This week it comes from the Daily Herald’s Melissa Jenco in her piece about the Hawks’ recent public appearance at Yorktown Center, a west suburban shopping mall. Kane said his penchant for attracting teen girls has earned him the title “the Miley Cyrus of hockey” from his teammates but he enjoys interacting with fans.”It goes along way,” he said. “You can do a lot of things like show your personality to them which they don’t see all the time. They just see you on the ice.”
Perhaps the runner-up QOTW goes to 18-year old Chicagoland native Lindsey Brooks who, in the same piece described “the Miley Cyrus of hockey” with “He’s cute and he’s a good player, but he’s really cute.”
-Sex and the Second City
Speaking of Kane’s “sex appeal,” the star forward was named (along with the Chicago Bulls’ Derrick Rose and Chicago Bears’ Brian Urlacher) to the Victoria’s Secret” “What’s Sexy Now Chicago Athlete” team. The publicity stunt was held to help promote the new Victoria’s Secret store in downtown Chicago. It’s not quite the NHL All-Star team, but then again nominations to play in the midwinter classic never come from ridiculously hot supermodel Marissa Miller. For the full list of nominees and voting, log onto VSChicago.com.
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I think that was my favorite Marissa Miller pic. I’m willing to be swayed, though…
Uhmmm yeah, that’s a pretty hot pic of ms. miller. I thought the picture where she’s playing playing one on one b-ball topless is really good (go to google images go nuts) was really really awesome, but that one is really fucking hot too.