Yawney Gone: Now let's really piss off the Wolves

Trent Yawney is gone. You can read all about it in the mainstream media. Yawney had lost 12 of the last 15 games, basically the Blackhawks hired a good, not great, minor league coach. He did what he could. And now, he’s gone.

The problems on Madison Avenue start at the very top. Let’s face it, Bill Wirtz, who is affectionately known among hockey fans as Dollar Bill, or simply $Bill$, needs to go.

That could happen through an errant bus or clogged arteries. It doesn’t matter to hockey fans. Anywhere.

Wirtz, afterall, was one of the holdout owners who prolonged the NHL lockout. After getting the other NHL owners to agree not to accept any proposal unless by unanimous consent, Wirtz, and others, held out when the players came looking to end the lockout.

And it was Wirtz who drove Pat Foley and Wayne Mezmer into the arms of Don Levin.

Which gets me to my point. Levin has been slapping Wirtz around like he’s Teddy Roosevelt and Wirtz is one of the meat packagers. Time to stop. Just say stop.

Because as much as I dislike the way Wirtz runs his empire, from the seedy reception area at 680 N Lake Shore Dr. to the driving away of any hockey talent, he has an opportunity.

He’ll never listen, of course. But he should.

Wirtz has been hurt, betrayed you might even say, by former employees who, when they were abandoned by Wirtz, didn’t have the good graces to slink off. No, Mezmer, who you may remember, was fresh out of the hospital from a shooting, became a vice-president of the Wolves.

And then there was Foley. Who would have guessed that after getting shown the door, the SOB would have the good luck to answer the phone when Judd Sirott was called up to the HD-NHL gig?

The nerve of the fans too. There are sometimes more of them at a Wolves game than a Blackhawks game held on the same day. Not to mention that Levin cut a deal with Comcast to broadcast all the Wolves games, home and away. It’s a deal that many NHL teams would give their right nut to have.

The enemy of the team on Madison Avenue isn’t the Detroit Red Wings or the St. Louis Blues, or for that matter any of the players reps. It is located on Mannheim Road in Rosemont, Illinois: the Chicago Wolves.

It is time for Don Levin to get a big punch in the eye, I think. Speaking metaphorically of course. And I know just how Wirtz can do it. Forget about Denis Savard. Promoting Savard is just a way to continue to lose.

Sorry Denis, you know it’s true.

Savard, or practically anyone else, is going to be faced with the fact that this team has been poorly run from the very top. Give Savard the GM position, satisfy the local hockey fans that way. Besides, we all know the next to exit is Dale Tallon.

Now, let’s really piss the Wolves and their fans off.

Noel. Yep, Noel as in Claude Noel. Oh boy, this would really get the Wolves fans pissed. Noel has gone to the big game twice and won a Calder Cup. And, he did it while the front office of the Milwaukee Admirals was spinning out of control. The trustee there had about used up all their capital, the team was a second-rate team. But, Noel brought a bunch of young head-strong individuals together and made them a winning team. A winning team that brought Milwaukee its first Calder Cup.

He largely held that team together, moreover, for two more seasons, making another serious run on the Calder Cup last season.

This guy is a winner. And Wolves fans hate him. Because he wins against the Wolves.

Not only that, hockey fans will see a winning coach come to town, something the pleasantly ineffective Yawney could never claim. Because going to post-season isn’t winning. Winning is bringing home rings and cups. And Noel can do that, even for a crappy team like the Blackhawks.