For all my life I have loved sports, whether it's playing backyard baseball, frisbee golf, Ultimate, pickup basketball, etc., or watching nearly every single one of the 162 Brewers regular-season games. The Olympics are a strange time because I get wrapped up into sports I have never thought about. All of the sudden I'm screaming how a diver over-rotated on a triple spin into an inverted backbend, and how that's going to cost them silver to Lithuania. For all this love of sports, somehow I have never gotten into Hockey. While it may be less popular than the other three of the four major American sports, it is still strange that someone who loves watching any kind of sport never got into it. For one, when I skated as a kid, it always hurt my ankles. I was not bred to be a skater and am much more comfortable sliding on my boots then attaching knives to my feet and relearning how to walk. Another, and probably bigger reason, is that Wisconsin does not have an NHL team. There was an attempt in the early 90s for one in Milwaukee but it eventually petered out. So, Wisconsin stays content with the Milwaukee Admirals, who are in the AHL and act as a semi-Minor League team for the Nashville Predators. For any Wisconsin kid, this means you eventually have to make an important decision. Do you root for the Minnesota Wild? The Chicago Blackhawks? Decide that you can't live with yourself being even somewhat bonded to either a Minnesotan or a FIB and find a random NHL team to root for? In this article, I plan to help any struggling Wisconsinite with this monumental choice. I will go through some important categories and choose winners between The Wild, or The Blackhawks.
(Side note: Technically you could go St. Louis Blues or Detroit Red Wings, but the Blues just won the Cup so you would be perceived as a bandwagoner. As for the Red Wings, well, Detroit just seems like a place of eternal sadness for sports teams, even more so than Minnesota. There is no point in choosing to root for one of their teams unless you are a masochist.)
Category One: Logo/Jersey
"James, is the logo really that important to what team you choose?" Yes, extremely. Some might say it is the most important. For the most part, teams are forced on you as a child and you are stuck with them. You are Stockholm Syndrome-ed into thinking the color scheme and logo are cool because you cannot escape it. That is the jersey you have to sport for the rest of your life and if it sucks, you have to ignore that (Looking at you Buccaneer fans). If this is a safe space, I would like to say that the [REDACTED] don't have an amazing color scheme and I think the only reason I like it is because I have to.
Blackhawks
Definition of a clean jersey. Great colors. Good shoulder logo. Instantly recognizable. The main logo is the perfect amount of complex and simple. It is very hard to mess up with red, black, and yellow as your colors. This is where I would try to sound fancy in describing why it is good, but I got none of that skill from my artist father. It's good, it is one of my favorites in all of sports, a lot of drunk college students wear them on Halloween, the feathers look dope. That's all I got.
Wild
It is a strong jersey. That green is pure. These aren't technically the main jersey, but they are my favorite out of all they have and the only one I would buy if I were a Wild fan. Minimal red, which is good, I am not a fan of the red-green pairing. Great lettering with the nice homage to the North Stars. Now, their main Bear logo creek woods thing is not on this jersey. It is a decent logo, the trees are cool, moon cool, creek as mouth cool. There is a lot going on with it and I just don't think it is on the same level as the Blackhawks. If I were to get a Hawks jersey, it would have to have the logo, but my favorite Wild jersey lacks the logo, and I think that is important.
Winner: Blackhawks
Category 2: Team History
This is a tricky one because there is a happy middle ground that you want. For example, I know someone who was born and raised in New York and is a die-hard Yankees fan. As much as I hate the Yankees, I understand that he bleeds pinstripes and it is his culture. I have another friend who is from Wisconsin and is a die-hard Yankees fan. I don't know why, I don't care to know. No excuse is good enough to justify that. When you have the blessing/curse to be able to choose who you root for, you have to have tact. They can't be too good, otherwise, no one will respect your decision. They can be losers year after year, but do you really want that?
Blackhawks: Give it a couple more years and you might be able to justify it. The Blackhawks have had a better 2010's than any other hockey team. The won the 'ship in 2010, 2013, and 2015. 2018 was the first time in 10 years they did not have a playoff appearance. They followed it with a disappointment of a 2019, another year without a playoff appearance. This slightly justifies the choice, but not enough. 6 Stanley's with 3 happening in the past 5 years. 4 Conference Championships. 2 President Cups. 16 Conference Championships. Patrick Kane is one of the best wings in the country. There is too much success and happiness.
Wild: If you wanted the opposite end of the spectrum, have I got the team for you. Stanley Cups - 0. Conference Championships - 0. President Trophies - 0. Division Championships - 1. The Wild have been around for 20 years, the Blackhawks have been around for 94 years. Still, not a great look. At least it is not in Detroit.
Winner: There is nothing worse than being a bandwagoner, go Wild and let your conscious stay clear as your tears never run dry.
Category 3: What is the first thing people will think of when they hear what team you root for?
We all do this, don't lie to yourself. When I tell people I'm a Packer fan I assume they think I'm a loud, no shirt in the snow, body paint, PBR chugging, cheese straight from the wheel midwesterner. When Jon told me he was a Vikings fan I assumed he was sad constantly. Yankees fan? Loud, owns at least 3 golden chains, loves Italian food, unaware of the pure, unadulterated hatred every Twins fan feels for them. St. Louis Cardinals Fan? Has a Yadier Molina shrine in their basement, only drinks Busch, supports cheaters and the Devil himself (Tony La Russa). You get the point.
Blackhawks: I have not had a lot of interaction with a Hawks fan, however, they suffer from Illinois bias. I have had multiple run-ins with Cubs and Bears fans, not including my Cubs fan brother or my Bears fan father. They suck, mostly because there is a cockiness there that is hard to find elsewhere. The Bears have had one good season in their entire history, and yet if you talk to a Bears fan it seems like they are a perennial contender with multiple rings. I don't know, I just have this bad vibe when I try to think of a Blackhawks fan. I picture that rich snob in high school whose parents made a hockey rink in their 25-acre backyard so Johnny could work on his slap shots.
Wild: This is the peak Minnesotan. This is the lumberjack who ice fishes in the winter and fishes for muskies in the Boundary Waters in the summer. This is the person who will bake you a hot dish when you move into the neighborhood. This is the person whose idea of trash talk is "Hey der ref, I hope your day's nice but uh, I think you wouldn't know an icing if you were an Eskimo." They are the closest to Canadians that we have and we must treasure them.
Winner: Don't be a FISH, go Wild.
Category 4: Star Player
You need to know who you are rooting for, and you need to know one name you can throw out to prove you follow the team. Maybe go for the Captain and then find one third rotation guy you hang your hat on for random knowledge about.
Blackhawks: Jonathan Toews (pronounced liked tayes) is the Captain. He is a center who, much like me, was blessed by the hockey gods as a lefty. He has been on the hawks since '07 and was nominated for Rookie of the Year. The year after, he became the second-youngest Captain ever. The man has two gold medals. 2010 and 2014, and three Stanley Cups along with a Conn Smythe playoff MVP in 2010. He was named one of the 100 Greatest NHL players in 2017. The man's only fault is he is Canadian.
Wild: The "Finnish Flyer" Mikko Koivu. Drafted in 2001 by the Wild, he played his first game with the team in 2006. He has been around this organization for forever, leading the Wild in games played and points scored. He also was one time voted best Finn in hockey, so obviously he is a solid pick. However, he is 36, and missed a lot of last season with an ACL tear. Most likely you will need to remember his name history-wise, but he is not the star player anymore. Matt Dumba is the man to watch now for upside. The 25-year-old defenseman from Saskatchewan was drafted in 2012 and had a breakout year in 2017 when he played 82 games. Last season got cut short for him by a shoulder injury suffered in this fight. He is back this year though and having another good year in rotation alongside Ryan Suter on the first shift.
Winner: I am vastly underqualified to say, but Dumba gave me the opportunity to put in a donnybrook so, Wild
Category 5: Goal Horn
The last and most important category. For those who don't know, after a goal is scored by the team, the loudspeakers blast a song that is hopefully something you want to hear every game and you never get sick of it. You could go with a super familiar song everyone knows so the place gets rocking when that little snippet gets played. You could also go the other way and find a deep cut not a lot of people know, but one that you hope will just forever be known as your goal horn and nothing else because of how obscure it is. When people hear that song, you want them to immediately think of your team, that is marketing 101.
Blackhawks: The prime example of a quality goal song, "Chelsea Dagger" by The Fratellis. It is easy to sing along, it gets caught in your head, and I don't even watch hockey but I know this is the Blackhawks goal song. They also have specialized goal songs for certain players, for example, when Jonathon Toews scores, they either play "Johnny B. Goode" or "Sharp Dressed Man".
Wild: Started out with the classic "Rock and Roll Part 2" and after that the much lesser known "Crowd Chant". After Prince died in 2016 they used "Let's Go Crazy" as a tribute for one game. At the start of 2017, there was a petition to make it the permanent goal song, and the Wild did, for a season. In 2018 they made the greatest mistake and decided to go back to "Crowd Chant". This sin is inexcusable. No one disrespects Prince.
Winner: Blackhawks, with the caveat that the Wild would have won if they had kept "Let's Go Crazy"
Final Tally: Wild-3 Blackhawks-2
To be fair, that star player one could go either way so it's probably a toss-up. It comes down to whether you want a perennial loser who could turn things around and you could say you suffered with them and deserve this. Or you could choose the team that is more likely to get you a Stanley but have to deal with the fact you hopped on a bandwagon and didn't suffer through bad times to enjoy good times.
Bonus: The Nashville Predators could be your team because the Milwaukee Admirals are their AHL affiliate. Think of them as basically the Wild, just farther away.
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