Vol 1 Feb. 2014
cup of Joy Page 3
Lollapalooza’s reign continues unabated Page 4
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By Brian Cazeneuve
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ockout? What lockout? The Blackhawks bested the Bruins in six brilliant and punishing games, a sublime series that put a finishing touch on a year that began gloomily, but turned into a season to celebrate fot the NHL. In two desperate, stunning and unforgettable strikes, the season that nearly never was ended with a series that will live forever. Bryan Bickell and Dave Bolland scored goals 17 seconds apart, the last with 59 seconds to play, to lift the Blackhawks to a thrilling six-game triumph over the game and equally deserving Bruins. In the center of the ice after the final horn sounded, Chicago captain Jonathan Toews mouthed the words, “I can’t believe this,” to teammate Corey Crawford. The goalie’s answer, give or take a forgivable unprintable, was: “Never, no way.” The 2013 Stanley Cup finals was a triumph not just for Chicago. Five months ago, as the NHL crawled out of the rubble of its third lockout in two decades, nobody — not the owners, not the players and certainly not commissioner Gary Bettman or union chief Donald Fehr — could have drawn up anything as perfect as this series, a marquee matchup between two Original Six franchises that turned out to be one of
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the most competitive and compelling finals in recent memory. In six games and more than 435 minutes of hockey, including an exhausting triple-overtime opener in Chicago, neither team ever had more than a twogoal lead. Both the Bruins and the Blackhawks had chances to go up two games by Game 4 but blew them with losses in overtime on home ice. The cuticle-shredding drama and fierce pace of play all added up to exactly what the NHL needed in a year that began with the hockey world facing the possibility of a season lost to a labor stoppage: a reason to talk about the game based on what happened on the ice, not off of it. In this finals, supporting players became headliners: Blackhawks third-line center Andrew Shaw, who was passed over in both the 2009 and ‘10 drafts, scored the winner in Game 1; unheralded Bruins winger Daniel Paille celebrated his graduation from the fourth line to the third by netting winners in Games 2 and 3. Headliners became casualties: Chicago winger Marian Hossa, tied for the team lead in playoff scoring before Game 3, was scratched for that contest (after skating in warmups) with what the team would only describe as an upper-body injury; Toews sat on the bench for the entire third period of Game 5 after taking a shot to the head from Boston defenseman Johnny Boychuk; and Bergeron, the Bruins’ brilliant two-way center, left the same game in an ambulance after trying to play through what was reportedly a spleen injury. He and Toews were both back on the ice for Game 6. The action was so relentless, and the casualties were piling up so fast, that after Game 2, Boston winger Jaromir Jagr, 41, joked that he was becoming concerned for the fans. “If you have a bad heart, you might get a heart attack,” Jagr warned. “For young people it’s pretty exciting to watch. Old people, don’t watch it.” At least by NHL standards, plenty of fans did watch, though. Ratings on NBC and the NBC Sports Network were robust: the games averaged 5.4 million viewers per game, the best in nearly 20 years. “It’s only fitting,” said Blackhawks winger Patrick Sharp after Game 4, “that two of the oldest teams would give people a series for the history books.” For nearly two weeks, the Blackhawks and the
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ollapalooza 2013 is a wrap. As the now-stationary music festival marked year 9 in Grant Park, organizers honed the lineup’s mix of genres (with mainstream, hip-hop, edm and up-and-comer acts represented) and stepped up their game with strong female performers (from rising stars Angel Haze and Haim to headliner Cat Power). For usa today, Althea Legaspi took it all in, along with 300,000 fans. Replay: “Last time we played, it was our best souvenir, it was a beautiful moment. So there’s a tension, we have to do something better, otherwise it will be sad,” said Christian Mazzalai of Phoenix, whose performance Sunday marked the band’s second time headlining Lollapalooza. “So, yeah, we expect to leave with something very crazy exciting.” Bandmate Thomas Mars is married to
director Sofia Coppola, but Laurent Brancowitz balks at the idea of her making a documentary of the band. “It’s better for someone who doesn’t know us to do that. … Would you watch a documentary about bees, shot by a bee? You wouldn’t.”
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Pinch hitters: Saturday featured some lineup finagling, with original headliner Azealia Banks dropping out with a throat infection. Death Grips moved into the vacated spot, then dropped out as well. Professional snowboarder/skateboarder “Shaun White is hanging out here, he’s got his band (Bad Things) with him,” said Lollapalooza founder Perry Farrell. “So we asked, ‘Do you want to jump in and take that slot?’” Sibling harmony: Sisters Emily Robison and Martie Maguire of Court Yard Hounds furthered Lolla’s feel-good vibe with their perfected harmonies and songs that span country, bluegrass, folk and pop. As for their other band, Dixie Chicks, there isn’t a new album or U.S. tour on the horizon quite yet. “We always wait to be on the same wavelength, inspiration-wise. And with the last album, we just poured so much heart and soul into it, and it said so much, that we’re just kind of waiting to be back on that same wavelength,” Robison said. “I do think about the fans, about the limbo that we left them in. And I want to give them a better answer than, ‘We just don’t
Bruins traded haymakers like heavyweight fighters and tactical adjustments like chess masters. In a 2-1 overtime victory in Game 2, Boston coach Claude Julien used a rope-a-dope strategy, letting the Blackhawks punch themselves out early — Chicago bolted to a 23—6 advantage in shots on goal — before intensifying his team’s forecheck and turning the neutral zone into rush hour on the Mass Pike. The congestion took away the stretch passes that highly skilled Chicago likes to use to create space for its speedy forwards. Chicago made several changes after Boston ground out another workmanlike 2—0 win in Game 3. The Blackhawks were badly beaten 40—16 on face-offs (Bergeron, who until his injury was making a strong case for the Conn Smythe Trophy, won an astonishing 24 of 28), so in Game 4, Chicago coach Joel Quenneville had his wingers cut hard toward the dots to skew the odds on 50-50 pucks. Over the next three games, Chicago and the Bruins were exactly even on draws, 99—99. Early in the series Chicago seemed spooked by Boston’s aggressive defensemen, particularly the 6’9” Chara. The Blackhawks were reluctant to work the puck behind the Bruins’ punishing defense. Only after the Blackhawks made the bruising commitment to engage the Bruins’ defense behind the goal line (to win puck battles) and in front of Rask (to establish screens) were they able to turn the tide of the series. Hitting Chara is a bit like running head-on into a U-Haul, but the cumulative tenderization of the Boston captain finally won some benefits. Chicago took Game 4 6—5; Chara, who entered the series +12 in the playoffs, was on the ice for five of the Blackhawks’ goals. In Chicago’s 3—1 win in Game 5, Chara was on the ice for all three. “At times in the first couple of games we were giving him a little bit too much respect by trying to keep the puck away from him,” Toews said before Game 4. “He’s not a guy that we should be afraid of. We should go at him…. We can expose him.” Another Quenneville adjustment in Game 4 turned out to be the most important move of the series. Down two games to one, he reunited the high-powered line of Toews and wingers Bickell and Patrick Kane. Quenneville had used the line inter-
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mittently during the season and went to it to help his team climb out of a 3—1 series hole against the Red Wings in the Western Conference semifinals. Kane’s marksmanship, Toews’s playmaking skills and defensive acumen, and Bickell’s power game are a natural fit, but Quenneville usually prefers to spread his assets to different lines. The rejiggering paid off almost immediately: Toews and Kane, who would be named the Conn Smythe Trophy winner as playoffs MVP, scored just 2:08 apart to give Chicago a 3—1 lead in the second period of a frenetic game in which the offensive wizardry was augmented by goaltending ineptitude. For all of Quenneville’s tinkering, Cup fortunes, as usual, came down to the men in net: the fiery Rask and Chicago’s unflappable Crawford. Both goalies were understudies during their teams’ recent title runs, Rask under Tim Thomas in 2011 and Crawford under Antti Niemi and Cristobal Huet in 2010. “You can learn a lot from success,” says Crawford, “but sometimes you learn more from being challenged. It might not show on the outside, but it toughens you up and gets you through the ups and downs of those long series.”
ND THE CITY
IMAGE GALLERY
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Chicago Blackhawks 2013 Stanley Cup Victory Celebration
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Top Row: Chicago Night Sky from Lake Michigan, Chicago Theatre Bottom Row: Cloud Gate aka “The Bean”, Navy Pier Amusement Rides
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Lollapalooza 2014
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Both goalies had plenty of learning experiences in Game 4. The normally sublime Rask, who allowed just two goals in four games to the powerful Penguins during a sweep of the Eastern Conference finals, coughed up six, spitting out rebounds with uncharacteristic abandon. Crawford allowed five, with each shot beating him on the glove side. That led Hockey Night in Canada analyst and former NHL goalie Daryl Reaugh to tweet, “Tonight the joke has resurfaced: What do Michael Jackson and Corey Crawford have in common? Both wore/wear a glove for no apparent reason.” In backup Ray Emery — who won 17 of 18 starts during the regular season and actually finished ahead of Crawford (19-5-5) in the Vezina voting — Quenneville had a solid alternative if he was worried about Crawford’s catching woes. But he never considered a change, saying, “Corey has been fantastic for us and puts bad games behind him better than anyone.” Before Game 5, Crawford did make one change: he came out sporting a new glove with red piping in the mesh instead of his worn white one. A goalie changing gloves in the middle of the finals is like
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a driver changing cars a few minutes before the Indy 500 — it’s nearly unheard of. But then, Crawford doesn’t play the usual netminding mind games. The psychological profile for most goalies looks like an EKG on hyperdrive. Here is Glenn Hall losing his lunch before most games. There is fellow Hall of Famer Patrick Roy talking to his goalposts. Former WHA and NHL goalie Gilles Gratton was reincarnated, he claimed, from a medieval Spanish soldier. And the Flyers’ Ilya Bryzgalov has broken off on postgame tangents about how stars align with planets. Even Rask is prone to moments of, well, madness. After a shootout loss in the minors he hurled a milk crate onto the ice. Got temper? “Nothing fazes [Corey], really,” says defenseman Duncan Keith. “If he lets one in, he’s right back at it the next shift. And he’ll talk to you before games. He’s so relaxed. He’s almost normal.” For a goalie — for anybody, really — Crawford is tranquility personified. Other teams can have Axl Rose in goal. The Blackhawks will keep Perry Como, thank you very much. Whether it has been Rask, or the Red Wings’ Jimmy Howard, or the Kings’ Jonathan Quick, Crawford has often found himself in the position of being a good goalie going up against a better one — someone, in other words, who wasn’t going to steal wins for his team. It’s a notion that makes his teammates bristle with indignation. “That’s ridiculous,” says Toews. “People may not give him his due all the time, and I’m not sure he cares about taking credit, but we don’t get here without Corey.” “It seems like the games get bigger and Corey gets better,” says Quenneville. “But the way he goes about his business, it’s like the spotlight will always be on someone else. And he’s fine with it. He doesn’t need to get noticed; he just needs to win hockey games.” Crawford quietly let his numbers do most of his talking. He won 16 games and led all goaltenders with a whopping 1.84 GAA in the playoffs. Perhaps the reason that Crawford doesn’t act like a goalie is that he wasn’t originally planning to be a goalie. He played forward in Châteauguay, Que., until he was eight. But when Roy backstopped the Canadiens to the Stanley Cup title in 1993, Crawford was hooked. He played an old VHS tape of Roy’s theatrics
know what we’re doing next,’ you know?” What’s in a name? A lot, in the case of Los Angeles’ sibling act Haim (“Hime,” rhymes with “time”). “Everyone pronounced our name wrong, even in high school,” Este Haim said. The group gave one of the best performances caught at this year’s Lolla, melding big, sexy classic rock guitar riffs, anthemic r&b and folk and pop stylings. “I want to make out with all of you,” Este proclaimed from the stage, before remembering who was in attendance. “My parental units are here. Lo siento, Mom and Dad!”
That’s ridiculous. we don’t get here without Corey. Top draws: Headliners Mumford & Sons received an added boost during I Will Wait, their harmonies punctuated by distant fireworks. Some of their packed crowd migrated to the Postal Service, whose set was sparsely attended in comparison, but that audience was treated to a much more engaging set. From the electro-bliss of A Tattered Line of String to the winsome Such Great Heights, where Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis and frontman Ben Gibbard’s melodies flirted as they played off each other, it was a great sendoff for the reunited band’s second-to-last show.
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“That ain’t 50!” Many large festivals aren’t heavily populated with female-fronted acts, but this year’s Lolla lineup houses more than in years past. But as Jessie Ware pointed out Friday: “It was funny, because (someone said), ‘It’s the biggest year for women. Twenty percent are women.’ I was like, ‘That ain’t 50!’” Ready for the weekend: Icona Pop’s Caroline Hjelt and Aino Jawo, who wore (respectively) white and black matching plastic dresses, asked a friend to make their futuristic-looking outfits. “You feel like you get superpowers when you put them on,” said Jawo. Who were they digging style-wise at the fest? Ghost B.C. “I mean, you don’t see who they are,” Hjelt said. “Their whole image, no one knows what they look like.” As for what festgoers wear, “we saw a lot of guys that were almost naked, and they were covered in glitter. Yeah, more of that. More naked!” Stacking the hits: New Order wasn’t shy about doling out the hits, and their fans were happy to hear them. Those looking to shake it to the ‘80s new wave dance pioneers had plenty to cull from: Ceremony, True Faith, Blue Monday and Temptation among them. And while the audience let loose, so did Bernard Sumner, who did a little dance shuffle during Bizarre Love Triangle. However, absence of bassist Peter Hook might have been keenly felt by diehards.
until the tape started to fray. His dad, Trevor, a former collegiate winger and Corey’s coach at the time, tried to talk him out of the position, saying that goalies got more pressure and criticism dumped on them than anyone else. But Crawford wasn’t the type to be frazzled. “Next shot, next save,” as he likes to say. “No big deal.” What is Crawford like before a playoff overtime? “Same as if he’s getting ready for the first period in an exhibition game,” says Kane. “Honestly, with Corey you wouldn’t know the difference.” After the Blackhawks chose him with the 52nd pick of the 2003 draft, it took Crawford, 28, seven years to win the starting job in Chicago. He finished fourth in voting for the Calder Trophy after an excellent rookie year in 2010—11 (2.30 GAA, .917 save percentage), but then fell victim to the sophomore jinx last season (2.72, .903), which ended when Coyotes goalie Mike Smith outplayed him decisively during Phoenix’s six-game defeat of the Blackhawks in the first round. When Crawford was out of action for two weeks in February with an upper-body injury, he and goalie coach Stephane Waite began watching tapes of the Rangers’ Henrik Lundqvist, who won the Vezina Trophy in 2011—12. Once Crawford returned to the lineup, he began to overhaul his game, sliding back in his crease, widening his stance and forcing his 6’2”, 208-pound frame lower so he could cover more of the bottom of the net as Lundqvist does. He lowered his GAA this season to 1.94. Though he has never made a national team at any level, he seems a lock to be one of Canada’s goalies at the Sochi Olympics next February. “When you’re down, you can kick and scream, but you know it won’t get you up,” Crawford says. “None of that makes you better. It won’t help you stop the next shot if you’re thinking about one that went by you.” Crawford actually said those words during Chicago’s 24game regulation unbeaten string in March. His ability to retain them and put them into action against the Bruins in Games 5 and 6 was his best save of the season. After a scintillating finals, where does the NHL go from here? The Blackhawks could well see themselves back in the finals next year. Their roster isn’t likely to be decimated as it was after their last title, in 2010, when
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the salary cap forced them to move valued role players Dustin Byfuglien, Andrew Ladd and Kris Versteeg. Bickell figures to cash in as an unrestricted free agent this summer, but the prospective loss of other UFA’s — forwards Michal Handzus and Viktor Stalberg, defenseman Michal Rozsival and goalie Ray Emery — wouldn’t be catastrophic. Chicago’s stacked and balanced lineup, with an under-30 core of Toews, Kane, Crawford, Keith and fellow defenseman Brent Seabrook, should keep the club poised for another run at the Cup in 2013—14. The Bruins’ future is more uncertain. The defense looked tired in the finals, especially the 6’9” Chara, who’s 36. The playoff seasoning for talented young blueliners Torey Krug, 22, Dougie Hamilton, 20, and Matt Bartkowski, 25, will serve them well. But winger Nathan Horton, a UFA who led the league at +21 this postseason, is expected to sign elsewhere this summer. The club will probably use a good chunk of its available cash to sign Rask, a restricted free agent, to a long-term extension. As for the league as a whole, the finals turned an upside-down season into a late-June Christmas present. And just as Quenneville made adjustments to make the Blackhawks better, so must the league adjust to its success. Attendance was strong this season, with 16 of 30 clubs boasting arenas filled to 100% or more of capacity. And NHL executives are projecting a $1 billion revenue jump over the next three seasons. Now it’s up to the NHL to build on the momentum and success of 2013. It’s time to move the financially troubled Coyotes and end the drama in Phoenix. It’s time to announce that NHL players will be allowed to participate in the Olympics in 2014 — for all the scheduling headaches they present for the league, the Games would be a p.r. bonanza for the game. “I think [the NHL] and the players share a common goal to grow this sport to unparalleled heights,” says deputy commissioner Bill Daly, “and we are all excited to get there.” For a good blueprint for how to recover from setbacks, the NHL needs look no further than the way Crawford handled himself in the finals: Keep cool and play the game.
No bum-out: Headliners The Killers ended their hiatus with the release of last fall’s Battle Born. But they may take a time out again, drummer Ronnie Vannucci said. “It isn’t like the old days where we would just (say), ‘Hey, let’s meet at my house in the garage at 3, and we’ll play until 7, and we’ll go get something to eat and then we’ll record some stuff.’ You do that, plus you have to plan the next two years of your life. It’s a real bum-out to be around people who aren’t wanting to be there. So you can’t force it, otherwise it just ends up being a bad time for everybody.” Their side of the field was massively packed, and for their second headlining appearance at Lolla, they pulled out the hits from the get-go, launching with Mr. Brightside and Spaceman; Smile Like You Mean It soon followed. The return: Meanwhile, on the other side of the park, returning headliner Nine Inch Nails had a good-size crowd, though navigating it was much more sane than the tight confines of The Killers’ section. It also felt much more subdued. During the atmospherics built into sludgy grooves of The Way Out Is Through, the band was awash in a red haze. Things livened up onstage and in the crowd for the explosive Wish, played back-to-back with Survivalism.
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by Chris Daleen This publication was printed on a Xerox ColorQube™. Brought to you by a student at the University of Illinois. Includes articles Cup of Joy by Brian Cazeneuve and Lollapalooza’s Reign Continues Unabated by Althea Legaspi. Chris Daleen does not own the photographs used. All rights belong to their respective owners. February 2014
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Corey Crawford, 2013 Stanley Cup Champion
Chicago Style News