Saturday, March 31, 2007

They can't even give them away...

Sorry I fell off the face of the earth there for a while. It was a long story involving disease and pestilence and I STILL have a cough three weeks later. But at least the baby feels better, I guess.

So, back to chronicling the craptasticness of Blackhawks ownership.

Last night we went to a Hawks game. Our seats were in section 119, 16 rows off the glass. Guess how much we paid for them.

No really, guess.

Did you guess just over $6? Total? For two 100 level seats?

The Blackhawks are reduced to GIVING away seats so that it even sort of looks like they have fans.

I opened the newspaper this morning after enjoying a pretty decent game vs. the Blue Jackets last night, to find this article: Free Hawks seats go begging: Lack of interest in freebies for games at the United Center a dead giveaway of the extent that the once-proud Chicago hockey franchise has fallen in popularity in recent years.

Read it! My favorite (and by "favorite," I mean, "thing that makes me want to tear out my hair and stuff it up this guy's nose") part is this quote:

"We're just trying to put some butts in the seats," said Peter Hassen, the Blackhawks manager of advertising and promotions. "We've had our ups and downs this year, and the fans haven't been supporting us as much as we'd like."


Wow. We haven't been supporting them. Oh, I'm so SORRY, Peter Hassen! I thought you ran a business and were supposed to put out a quality product for people to enjoy and pay their hard-earned money for! Silly me. I had better go read up on how to be a sycophant to a poorly managed team. Are there books on that?

No one wants to go to Blackhawks games because

1.) They suck.

2.) They don't want to give their money to an owner who is satisfied with a sucky team.

3.) They are losing their fan base because no one can watch them on TV (home games are blacked out).

I think there are more reasons too, but I've gotten myself too mad. I have to go watch a Cubs game or something. (Yeah, like that will help. They might be the only team in North America that can compete with the Blackhawks for crappy ownership*.)


*I totally typed "ownershit" the first time. Typo? Or Freudian slip?

2 comments:

Objectionable Conduct said...

Chicago has the WORST ownership in the freaking league. Hey Bettmass? Do something about that. PLEASE.

Heather B. said...

Oh, Lord. That bit about fans not supporting the team makes me want to hunt the guy down and punch him in the head and I'm not even a Blackhawks fan. Why oh why should you support a crappy team led by an owner who clearly couldn't care less? Does the NHL WANT to kill Chicago or what?