Chicago police were taken by surprise on the night the seventh game of the 2013 Stanley Cup final was to be played when a crowd estimated at nearly 3,000 spilled out on to the streets of Wrigleyville.
With fewer police patrolling the area on what was thought to be a quiet night, officials from Town Hall station on Addison Street recruited bartenders, waitresses and bouncers from local bars, who weren’t doing anything anyway since patrons vacated their establishments, to help control the crowd.
“The Hawks aren’t playing tonight?” Brandy Smith of Patterson Avenue, a recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, asked a WGN television reporter. “I became a Blackhawks fan around Mother’s Day and thought the hockey season ended in, like, October.”
“I haven’t left this bar since Monday afternoon,” said Jake Cousins, who shares an apartment with six people. “It doesn’t matter to me that there’s no game. Tonight is my turn to sleep in the bathtub.”
Gale A. Bach of Odebolt, Iowa was sitting in a lawn chair in front of Wrigley Field when police told him to leave the premises.
“I don’t know a damn thing about hockey and I don’t give a rat’s petunia,” Bach said. “I’m in line to make sure I get a ticket for a Cub game in September against the Marlins.”
