Coach Jeff Blashill couldn’t concentrate on an answer.
He just had to dance.
As “Come On Eileen” startlingly blared down the hall from where Blashill was addressing the media Saturday morning, he was thrown back in time.
“I used to dance to this in college; I would jump up and down,” Blashill said before demonstrating. “This is bringing back real memories.”
An old-time feeling is returning for Blackhawks fans, too, with a new generation igniting dormant emotions.
Blashill’s bunch is off to a surprising start after being pegged by preseason prognosticators to be one of the NHL’s worst teams. With their 3-2 victory against the Maple Leafs, the Hawks have 22 points and are in playoff position, though they’re only 18 games into their 82-game schedule.
Yes, it’s only mid-November.
But excuse starving Chicago hockey fans — who have suffered through five consecutive seasons of sub-30 win totals — for finding any excuse to bring the madness back to the Madhouse on Madison.
“[The fans] feed off us and our effort level and the energy that we play with,” defenseman Connor Murphy said. “We’ve been lacking in [previous] years, but you can see now with some of the young speed and talent we have, when they’re clicking and showing their skill, it correlates to good energy in the building. They appreciate that and give it back to us.
“It’s an exciting year for fans to see how the team has come along, and getting a few more wins is always nice to have as an outcome to try to develop into the team we want to be.”
The brewing on-ice resurgence made for an energetic atmosphere for the game against the Leafs. Corey Crawford and Patrick Sharp helped, the Cup-era duo showing up for a pregame ceremony to commemorate the centennial season and bringing the crowd to its feet before the puck even dropped.
But the fruits of Kyle Davidson & Co.’s rebuild are starting to show, and word seems to be getting out to anyone still waiting to hear: Jump back on the bandwagon because here come the Hawks.
“You’ve got to earn the attention,” Murphy said. “You have to win games and show you’re a force in the league. It’s still early in the season, so we’ve got to really prove that we’re going to be that team.”
The Hawks will continue to work on proving it. But there’s a winning feeling inside the locker room that hasn’t been there in years past.
“There’s more trust you’re going to pull it out, knowing that you’re not going to collapse like we’ve done in seasons past,” Murphy said. “When there’s these close games, we give ourselves a good chance.”
“That’s something that’s been built into our group throughout the last couple of years, that resiliency to not give up and to keep fighting,” forward Frank Nazar said. “A few games this year where we’re down a goal or it’s tied or whatever, we come into the locker room between periods, and we’re like, ‘Great teams win this game.’ We go out and do our best, and we’ve won a lot of them.”
The Hawks might not be a great team yet. There’s a lot of season left.
But the United Center was rocking again.
Party like it’s 2015, a decade ago, when the franchise won its most recent Stanley Cup? Not quite.
How about partying like it’s 2025, when the new-look Hawks are giving people reasons to finally go mad on Madison again?
That’ll work.
“Winning’s fun; losing’s not,” Murphy said. “There’s times we have lapses, and we want to correct those. But, in general, when you’re feeling energetic and youthful and fast and getting wins, that’s the most fun.”