Now Playing: Various Artists - Rocky IV: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Sports provide the greatest drama, and the Chicago Blackhawks are crafting another gem. I’ve written the ending.
A door slams in an otherwise silent Bl...
Now Playing: Various Artists - Rocky IV: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Sports provide the greatest drama, and the Chicago Blackhawks are crafting another gem. I’ve written the ending.
A door slams in an otherwise silent Blackhawks locker room following the game four loss in Detroit. Unintelligible yelling is heard from Joel Quenneville’s office as silhouetted figures gesticulate demonstratively behind the frosted glass door with “COACH” etched at eye level. The door swings open wildly, and a fiery Toews storms out with Quenneville yelling after him, “Have some pride, dammit!” The assistants make a move to intercept Toews but Quenneville motions for them to stand down. “Let him go, maybe he can find a doctor to remove his head from his ass!”
The disgruntled Blackhawks captain heads directly out of the locker room to a car waiting in the parking lot to which he inexplicably has the keys. As he peels out of the parking lot of Detroit’s Joe Louis Arena, (cue modern synth music with inspirational lyrics) his seething rage has blinded him to any particular destination and he just drives. And drives. And drives. Unrecognizable highway signs pass in the pitch-black night. His mood turns to disgust as the scenes of three straight penalties flash through his head [music intensifies].
Toews pulls his car into a gas station to refuel and we see him re-enter the car with six pack of non-descript beer. *fade to black* As we fade back in, it’s moments before dawn. We see Toews on the hood of his car surrounded by a snow-covered landscape, it’s clear he’s been driving all night. He cracks the first of his beers and looks into the sunrise. From afar, children’s voices can be heard approaching. We hear a familiar slapping and clacking as the camera turns to show a handful of boys and girls gathering on a frozen pond, throwing sticks from the center as they divide randomly into teams. Toews scoffs at their innocence and takes a long pull from his beverage, but continues to watch from one unwavering eye.
After several minutes of feigned indifference, Toews puts his beer down as his interest is piqued by this pickup game. He starts muttering instructions under his breath to the players on the ice. After an egregious defensive turnover results in a goal, he jumps up and in one fluid motion slaps the beer off the car’s hood, and retrieves a pair of skates from the trunk. He proceeds to lead the mite-sized skaters in a once-in-a-lifetime hockey clinic on a pond only slightly harder than the frozen tundra that surrounds it.
We see him pointing and directing kids this way and that, encouraging and demonstrating them the way to turnstile defensemen and find a goaltender’s weak spot.
The next shot shows the sun much further on the other side of the sky, and Toews turns towards the camera, and with steam rising from his sweat-covered brow, he cracks a wry smile for the first time.
“It’s getting late kids, I need to get going. Keep at it, you are all superstars,” Toews says as he climbs back into his car.
One of the plucky little 9-year-olds pipes up: “Thanks, mister! Where you from?”
“Oh, somewhere close,” Toews replies as he pulls away, and drives past a wooden sign with “Toews Lake” carved in it.
After averaging roughly 500 miles per hour, Toews arrives back in Chicago Friday evening and finds Coach Quenneville waiting at his parking spot at the United Center, puffin’ on a heater.
“So, did you find it?”
“Yeah, I found it. Didn’t have to go very far either, just about fifteen years ago.”
Quenneville turns to an open office window and says, “He’s back, boys. Keep the rink reserved for game seven.”
LET’S GO HAWKS!!!
-hackett
