You might have caught this last night, but when the crew at NBC Sports Chicago was discussing the Blackhawks next game — Wednesday night against the Blues — Scott Darling had thoughts.
"It's the worst city in the country, worst place to play, and was the first team on my no-trade clause agreement."
@Scott_Darling3 on St. Louis 😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/FSH7bxEGbY— Blackhawks Talk (@NBCSBlackhawks) November 15, 2022
He ain’t wrong.
I’ve been to St. Louis a few times, both to sit in the stands and professionally to cover sporting events. The last time I was there was to cover the Cardinals-Nationals playoff series a few years back, a series that did not go well for the Cardinals. Walking around downtown St. Louis before and after those games left me wondering what all the hype was about this great “sports town.” It was quiet — surprisingly quiet.
The rivalry between Chicago and St. Louis has been strong for decades. And the bad blood between the Blackhawks and Blues doesn’t need any smoke from the broadcast booth to be ready for battle on Wednesday night.
I was reminded of this when I made the mistake of wandering into the Facebook comments under the story I wrote late last week about how the Blues being bad this year could have a direct impact on the Blackhawks’ future. And, to my non-surprise, there were folks with the Blues’ logo as their avatar using their caps lock to tell me the Blues aren’t going to stay bad.
Well, if you read that piece you know my hope is the Blues rebound to being a playoff team and sink their draft pick as far as they can in the ’23 draft. But I think we all hope Wednesday night’s game puts an L in their ledger for this week.
