Baffoe: To A Blackhawks Fan Goes The Spoiling

By Tim Baffoe--

(CBS) Nine and 16. Those were my ages when the Chicago Bulls won their first and last NBA championships, respectively.

Those titles were some of the most fun I've ever had as a sports fan. But I was also very much a kid during them, a selfish brat who wanted more, more and more. I was gobbling all the ice cream without hardly tasting it, not pausing during the brainfreeze to consider the bigger picture of what I happened to be watching and experiencing, taking much of the late Michael Jordan era for granted as merely expected domination.

The Chicago Blackhawks are going to hoist the Stanley Cup this summer. Again, for the third time in six years. They'll have seven familiar faces on ice in Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Patrick Sharp, Marian Hossa, Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook and Niklas Hjalmarsson.

I make that declaration with three wins still needed, not to sound like a blind fanboy or braggart. I'm fully aware of what might be naïveté, and despite hockey's always-lurking randomness, at no point before the series against the Tampa Bay Lightning, as Chicago trailed for most of Game 1 or now have I felt there wouldn't be a Blackhawks parade downtown in a few weeks. And despite cute Tampa fans who think "irrational" is synonymous with hate …

… I don't feel entitled.

Though maybe I'm just a bit spoiled, and therein lies the personal battle. That childhood me isn't totally rearing its ugly, freakish ginger head, but being so at ease one game into any championship series smacks of conceit. Yet here I am.

And I certainly don't want to claim microcosmic representation of Blackhawks fans. There surely are some pacing, nail-biting Hawks fans out there yelling at their computer screens, "What are you doing, Baffoe, you're going to jinx it!!!" But trepidation isn't a vibe I've felt on the whole among those with any investment in the Hawks going into the Stanley Cup Final. A Cleveland Cavaliers fan and a Golden State Warriors fan are very different animals right now than fortunate Chicagoans.

Still, I should have learned my lesson, right? The stock market crash of the Tim Floyd era that followed the glut of Bulls titles helped mature and harden me, or so I thought. As a Cubs fan, any sports championship should be clutched like an entry pass at Ellis Island. There are White Sox fans that still hang their hats on 2005, and then there are the non-idiot majority of them who demand satisfaction. Fighting Irish, Wildcats and Illini football fans envy what's going on here. And the Bears are that bungling Illinois politician we curse every autumn, only to re-elect when all is said and done.

What the Blackhawks are doing — this consistency — isn't normal. Not for them, not for Chicago and not for sports. This is sustained greatness that more than 90 percent of pro teams in major sports don't accomplish. And for the sliver that do? Whoo, do their fans turn insufferable.

The St. Louis Cardinals. The New England Patriots. Hepatitis C.

That's not Blackhawks fans, though. I've never picked up an aura of "We're the best fans in hockey, and if you don't believe us, we'll tell you about it." There's a difference between confidence and cockiness.

Hawks fans tend to be knowledgeable with a proper dose of (self-deprecating when necessary) humor about everything. Even the incredibly lame Twitter copycat of the great @BestFansStLouis doesn't even accomplish portraying that which it's trying to set out to mock. When the biggest knock against a fan base is that its numbers swell when the team it roots for is doing well — ya know, like what happens with every great team's fan base— that's a good thing.

The hockey talk and writing in Chicago, present company excluded, is fantastic as a whole. There is no drunk-on-wins analysis from the fantastic acerbic blogs. Beat writers do a fine job of not carrying water for an organization that in its present state seems to have no salty relationship with print, TV or radio folk who will take Joel Quenneville and his 316 regular-season wins in seven season as Chicago's coach to task for his lineup decisions or call out the treatment/portrayal of women at the United Center.

It's a strange thing, this ride with the Blackhawks' -- dare I say it? -- dynasty. I expect victory, but I'm trying not to take for granted how special this decade so far has been and hopefully (probably) continues to be (hi, Teuvo!). I want more, more and more, but unlike the bratty Bulls fan of back in the day that I was, I'm chewing more before swallowing.

I'm digesting this Blackhawks thing before re-chugging. I'm pausing, smiling while wincing, enjoying this brainfreeze brought on by another heaping bowl of hockey ice cream.

Tim Baffoe is a columnist for CBSChicago.com. Follow Tim on Twitter @TimBaffoe. The views expressed on this page are those of the author, not CBS Local Chicago or our affiliated television and radio stations.