The Blackhawks deserve your attention

As a sports fan, the worst thing in the world is when your team is stuck in mediocrity. If a team is bad but building towards something bigger, that's fine. Most smart fans have patience. Apparently Knicks fans do too. But when your favorite team is going nowhere fast and it looks like there's no way out? Yuck. Take the Bears for example.

The core of the team isn't old, it's in its prime. The Bears have had success with these guys before, and because of it, they've all been paid. But where is it going to get them this year? They'll finish second in a lousy division, and got crushed in the two most important games of the season. The Bears aren't terrible, but they're going nowhere. They have good players, but they're just not good enough. It seems like they will be a middle of the road team for the foreseeable future, which makes you wonder why we waste three hours every Sunday watching them in the first place.

The Bears are the best example of this in Chicago sports, but I really like all of our franchises are stuck in a similar position.

Derrick Rose is obviously the saving grace for the Bulls - his greatness alone will likely will them to 50 wins next year - but imagine how awful that team would be without lucking into him. Luol Deng is terrible, Gordon is playing fantastic but his warts are nearly impossible to cover (he's likely on his way out anyways), and Paxson's latest two top ten draft picks (Tyrus and Noah) look like busts. With long contracts given out to Deng, Noce, and Hinrich, the Bulls would be in as bad of a position as any team in the NBA without Rose. Even with him, they still have a lot of work to do, with few valuable pieces to maneuver.

The baseball teams find themselves in similar situations too, only baseball is such a weird game that's it's impossible to predict what's going to happen.

The Blackhawks are different though. They're pretty good already (#6 is ESPN's latest power rankings), but this only feels like the beginning. The Hawks are starting to become a powerhouse before our eyes, with the perfect mix of homegrown stars (Kane and Toews), expensive free agent vets (Campbell and Huet), and role players starting to come into their own (Keith and Seabrook).

Chicago has always been described as a 'sleeping giant' in terms of a hockey market, and I think we're starting to see it happen. My dad and brother were at the game Wednesday and said it was a full house for a middle of the week game against an average Ottawa team. From today's Trib:

The Blackhawks lead the National Hockey League in attendance, averaging 21,475 at the United Center and outdrawing the Bulls for the first time since before the Michael Jordan era.

And merchandise sales are up an astonishing 234 percent, highest among the 30 NHL teams.

Exciting stuff.

The real test becomes this: will people our age (18-29) who have never watched hockey before start following the Hawks? I honestly haven't watched a Hawks game start to finish all season, but I'm sort of incredibly busy, so there isn't much time for "sports" and things of that nature. Tonight the Hawks and Bulls both play (conveniently two hours after each other), I'm going to watch both, I think. Should be fun.

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I set the single season high for points (143) in our fantasy league this week with my semifinal victory over My Meat.

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Draft news:

- NFL Draft Countdown has updated its mock. It has Stafford going #1 to the Lions (good luck with that Detroit), and three left tackles in the top seven. I mentioned a few days ago that this looks like one of the weakest drafts in recent memory, and I'll stand by that, though I admitidly haven't caught too much college futbol this year. Scott Wright has the Bears nabbing  Mizzou speedster Jeremey Maclin in the first round, which I'm not too excited about either. The Bears are obviously going to need a d-end or receiver in the first round, but do they really need another burner when we know Orton can't throw deep?

- ESPN launched its NBA Draft Machine today too, which is always fun. This NBA class looks equally weak, which happens after a really great class like the one we had last year (Rose, Mayo, Westbrook, and, to a lesser extent so far, Beasley should all be studs). Blake Griffin is fo real, but there not much after that. I love Steph Curry but is he really a top five pick? And Thabeet at two? Ricky Rubio is pretty sweet, though.