The Chicago Blackhawks shocked the world last night—or at least the very small part of it that still follows professional hockey—by beating the Nashville Predators 8-6. The game didn’t start the way the Blackhawks would have liked. Former Hawk J.P. Dumont scored 39 seconds into the game giving Nashville the early lead. Then four minutes later, Kimmo Timonen rifled one past Hawk goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin to put the Predators up 2.
The Blackhawks then rattled off three unanswered goals as Martin Havlat, Patrick Sharp and Michael Handzus scored to put the Hawks up by one as the first period ended. Shortly before the end, another former Blackhawk, forward Scott Nichol—all 5’8″ and 173 pounds of him—thought it would be a good idea to get in a brawl with Hawk’s winger Martin Lapointe, who stands at 5’11” and 215 pounds. Lapointe let Nichol get a few punches in, almost mocking him, before he landed right hand after right hand on the top of Nichol’s head. Lapointe was confused why the Nashville wannabe pugilist was so upset.
“Look, all I did was tell him that he looked like the type of person who preferred the company of men,” Lapointe said between periods. “I mean, if you’re that sensitive about your sexual orientation then I feel sorry for you. It’s 2006. Live free my friend. I just thought he was being trendy.”
The next two periods saw several lead changes, but in the end the Hawks were the stronger team and threw eight on the scoreboard to take the win. Lapointe, Rene Borque, Bryan Smolinski and Radim Verbata all scored. Martin Havlat netted his second on an empty netter to seal the Predators’ fate.
“It was a big win for this franchise,” Captain Adrian Aucoin said during the post game press conference. “As soon as I saw they had Country Music Television as one of their sponsors I knew we had to win this thing. I mean, this isn’t Nascar. Crazy hicks.”
The Hawks have their home opener Saturday night against Columbus.
