Final Thoughts on 2010-11 Chicago Blackhawks: Rest in peace, Jimmy

Not that it hasn't been pointed out thousands of times or makes the excuse feel as though it would serve any real purpose, but it's hard to repeat after winning the Stanley Cup. Marian Hossa was coming off three straight years in which he played for teams with seasons that lasted all the way into June, so I can forgive him for missing some time during those regular seasons.

But looking back at this year, it was a struggle all season long just to compete. And while the team went out with an unbelievable bang that was oh-so-close to being an an accomplishment of historic proportions, there won't be any Blackhawks hockey this summer.

I suppose that gives me more time to figure out how I'm going to get the team's radio broadcasts when I'm living in Austin and the puck next drops for the team, but this year was a slowly painful realization that his year's squad just quite simply was nowhere near as good as what we had last year.

I knew this year's run wouldn't be the same when the guy I watched most of last year's playoffs with, Jimmy, passed away from lung cancer on April 20.


That picture was taken last year at an outing in honor of his wife's birthday. She passed away from cancer not more than a few years before. Jimmy was my buddy B. Doggy's father, and his life as a widow seemed to mostly revolve around him opening his home to having one, two or even once a family of characters staying with him.

There was nobody living with Jimmy when things really began taking a turn for the worse quite quickly. B. Doggy informed me he'd had to take his father to the ER on a few occasions because of pneumonia. Jimmy had been having problems breathing for as long as I'd known him, largely because of a job he'd had some number of years ago in which the hazardous fumes he'd inhaled had done enough damage to his lungs to require an oxygen tank he used occasionally. It probably didn't help that he smoked.

We found out on the way to the hospital during one of his last visits that Jimmy's diagnosis was much more severe, having gone from Stage II to Stage IV. For B. Doggy it was just like what he'd gone through with his mother almost three years to the day.

Another friend and I had gone over to see Jimmy on April 19, just to stop by and say hello. But things were already taking a turn for the worse and the nurse warned me we were looking at the final moments of the man's life.

The Blackhawks were down 3-0 in the series to Vancouver at that point, a game away from being eliminated. It seemed entirely fitting to me that night that they be swept out of the playoffs. Instead, they went and pounded the Canucks. 

Maybe there's still some life after all, I thought.

Instead, B. Doggy called the following morning with the unfortunate news. It was a double-dose of bad timing as he'd lost his job recently too, thanks to the bar he works at closing. While he certainly has some very heavy items to deal with in the immediate future, I'm confident he'll be finding a new landscape to explore soon.

Ordinarily, I think the general idea of these "Final Thoughts" segments is to reflect on the year that just passed and make note of whatever accomplishments or memorable plays. But for me, this past season will be remembered as the one where we lost Jimmy. In a way, it makes the end to the previous campaign, still being able to smell the cigar I was puffing outside Jimmy's doorway while we laughed and smiled, even a little bit more special.

This year's season got off to a slow start before I began to immediately express concern about even making the playoffs. The chances were looking especially bleak before the team ripped off eight in a row—only good enough to help them back into these playoffs on the final day of the regular season after Dallas could not beat their old hometown's new team, the Wild.

The playoffs didn't last beyond the seven games needed to determine a winner in this year's first round, and while Vancouver finally got to enjoy coming out on the winning end of things for a change, the performances turned in from these Blackhawks over those final four games gave this fan enough reason to have optimism for the next year.

Still, it's going to be even more difficult now for me to fully recapture the magic of that 2010 run now that the guy who was there with me for most of the ride has gone on; not traded, or released or any of those moves that caused the members of that championship squad to have to leave, but Jimmy's passed away for good.

In a way, it puts things much larger than hockey in proper perspective. But for this fan's view of this past season, I can't separate Jimmy's death from the end to this year as well.