Posted by Pierre LeBrun
CHICAGO -- If a picture were worth a million words, seeing fans camp out in the middle of the night this week to get their hands on Blackhawks playoff tickets pretty much said it all.
You've come a long way, Chicago.
This is a team that was 29th in NHL attendance just two seasons ago with an average of 12,727 a game. This season, the Hawks were first overall in the league, cramming fans into the NHL's biggest building at 22,247 per night.
Just over a year ago, the season-ticket base was 3,400.
"Now we have a waiting list in excess of 3,400," Blackhawks president John McDonough said. "We didn't make the playoffs in '07-08, and our season-ticket base went from 3,400 to 14,000. And that's coming off a non-playoff year."
But McDonough is far from satisfied.
"I'm not impressed with this," he said Monday as he sat down with a handful of media, including ESPN.com.
He wants this to be a long-term, stable success story. Not a short-term blip.
A big part of the turnaround is the oldest remedy in sports: The team started winning again. But the Hawks aren't just winning for the first time in a long time; they're doing it with a young, exciting product. There's also a new approach within this franchise, and it started when McDonough came on board last season.
"I don't really think there is anything magical about it," said McDonough, who was a longtime Chicago Cubs executive before joining the Hawks. "What our fans wanted to see was a different approach. They wanted to see a different playbook. They wanted to see the Blackhawks get out of the grudge business.
"They were looking for profound change."
Under McDonough, the Hawks put an end to the archaic practice of not televising home games. They also reconnected with former stars such as Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita. The fans loved that.
"We're not going to accept anything less than excellence," McDonough said. "That dreaded E-word: expectations. There are going to be expectations. There are going to be expectations on me [too]. But if I hire someone, give them the responsibilities, I expect them to be great at their job. I'm not real patient. I have a tendency to call people on things. Because, to me, once is a trend."
That impatience and McDonough's approach has led to rumors the Hawks president wasn't seeing eye to eye with GM Dale Tallon, who has done an excellent job of rebuilding this team. We asked McDonough point-blank: Some people think you want to replace Tallon; is that true?
"No, it's not true," McDonough said. "Here is where I think this comes from. Any time that somebody new comes in to run an organization, and you're getting to know people's styles -- and their styles are different than yours -- that's probably going to be put under the category that there is friction between the president and the general manager.
"Dale is more of a laid-back, casual, get-it-done [guy], in a different style. Mine is more aggressive. It's every-day aggressive. So, we're learning more about each other. I have great respect for Dale. He is the architect of this team. He has a year remaining on his contract. So, he will be here."
ESPN.com Stanley Cup playoffs blog
