The Blackhawks' Fourth Quarter: Sorry for the lack of new coin graphics

I need to get my playoff predictions up in a few hours, but we're still two whole days away from the Blackhawks season finally kicking into its real gear. I've been thinking over some smaller regular features for the quarterly thoughts I offer on one of the other teams that constitutes My Four Bs, which will probably be unveiled some time after the Braves play their 40th game. Until then, you're going to have to be satisfied with this latest reason as to why it's effing glorious to be a Blackhawks fan right now.

Oh sure, that fourth quarter of the season was pretty rough. After beating Vancouver a couple days following the gimme against Edmonton immediately after the Olympics, the 'Hawks struggled through most all of March and were unable to put together consecutive victories until once again getting white-hot in April—losing only in the finale to the Red Wings. That loss cost the team a chance to grab the Western Conference title, but really, I'm not all that bothered by it. If anything, the 'Hawks ended up precisely where I had expected them to be—but I will get back to further thoughts on that in the Round One Predictions later today.

Until then, I can only say that I'm even more antsy about these playoffs getting started than I was last year and about the only time I can recall being this similarly enthused about a post-season getting started may have been when the Bears entered the playoffs as the top seed for their Super Bowl run a few years ago. But more importantly right now, this fourth quarter of the Blackhawks season is not a conclusion, but merely a bridge. I'm hoping there are many more rounds of additional thoughts as the playoffs unfold, and then we can start worrying about putting a different type of bling on this page.