United Center Preparing For Hockey Season, New York’s Finest vs. Bravest, and Other Blackhawks Bullets

This is usually the time of year where the Blackhawks would be heading to Traverse City for their prospect tournament, but unfortunately that won’t be happening this year. Instead, the Minnesota Wild and Blackhawks will play a two-game prospect series ahead of the opening of training camp. While we await the rosters for the prospect series against Minnesota and the training camp rosters, the United Center is starting to look ready for the start of the NHL season!

•   Buffering…

•   The United Center ice started getting ready for the 2021-22 season with a little help from the Dach brothers yesterday.

https://twitter.com/NHLBlackhawks/status/1436087538758950918?s=20

•   Colton and Kirby, both will be invites to training camp in the next few days, certainly have the tools to have bright futures in Chicago. Kirby is already creating his path with the Blackhawks in the NHL, while Colton looks to have a breakout season with Saskatoon in the WHL.

•   At the event to paint the ice, Kirby spoke with the Chicago media about his offseason recovery and what he is looking forward to in the 2021-22 season…

•   Dach, coming into his first full training camp with the Blackhawks since being drafted third-overall in 2019, is fully healthy after missing about two-thirds of last season due to a broken wrist. He’s going to be a fixture this season with Chicago and, like his younger brother in Saskatoon, can hopefully have a breakout season as a scoring leader for his club.

•   While Dach will be a focal-point for the Blackhawks this season, there are a number of others who will have to excel for the Blackhawks to live up to their new expectations as a team that can contend for a Stanley Cup Playoff spot. A chunk of those players will be brand new to the Blackhawks including Seth Jones, Jake McCabe, Tyler Johnson, and Marc-André Fleury.

•   Speaking of Fleury, Allan Walsh, Fleury’s agent, joined the Steve Dangle Podcast this week to talk about everything from the trade to the Blackhawks to the infamous DeBoer sword tweet. I highly recommend checking out the first half of the episode to catch Walsh’s segment.

•   The second-half of the podcast episode has technical difficulties with the audio, but it’s also worth sticking around for the guys’ tribute to Jimmy Hayes.

•   How’s this for badass? Canadian women’s hockey legend Hayley Wickenheiser, who became an M.D. this Spring, is serving both of her roles as a doctor and the Senior Director of Player Development with the Toronto Maple Leafs as the season approaches.

•   That’s insane, in the best way.

•   Speaking of badass, the New York Fire Department and Police Department held their annual hockey game last night at Madison Square Garden.

•   We are coming up on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and honoring the first responders to that tragedy, the two sides put on a show in a 7-4 game that saw the Fire Department come out on top.

•   It’s New York. It’s the Fire and Police departments. So you know there are some tough guys on the ice…

•   It’s crazy to think about everything that happened on September 11th, 2001 was twenty years ago. It was two-thirds of my lifetime ago, and yet I remember the day so vividly. Crazy.

•   Remember, every day, to let those close to you know what they mean to you as much as possible.

•   That will do it for today. Hope you all enjoy your TGIF Friday!

•   A weekend reminder, be sure to send your Blackhawks questions to me on Twitter using the hashtag #BNHawksMailbag or email them to me using Mario.tirabassi at bleachernation dot com and I will get them answered for the Monday Mailbag segment!

written by

Mario Tirabassi is a writer for Bleacher Nation. You can follow him on Twitter @Mario_Tirabassi.

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