CHICAGO — Chicago Blackhawks Chairman Rocky Wirtz is the rare owner of a Chicago sports team whose popularity has remained intact in spite of his team’s bout with mediocrity.
Bulls and White Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf has always had his detractors, even while bringing seven championships to this city over the last three decades. Many Sox fans blamed Reinsdorf for his role as a hawk in the 1994 players strike that canceled the season with his team in first place. And as “The Last Dance” reminds us, he made the worst decision by a Chicago sports executive in history, choosing Bulls general manager Jerry Krause over coach Phil Jackson, which led to Michael Jordan’s departure.
Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts had an easy act to follow when his family bought the team from Tribune Co. in 2009. But Ricketts quickly learned that ending the team’s 108-year championship drought in 2016 didn’t provide him with a lifetime pass from Cubs fans spoiled by the success of the rebuild, and he was booed at the Cubs Convention this year for moving telecasts to a team-owned channel many couldn’t watch.
And as much as everyone respects Bears owner Virginia McCaskey, there has never been any love lost for her two sons who have run the team, Michael and George.
But you seldom hear a discouraging word about Wirtz, and if you do, it’s usually in hushed tones. How can you possibly dislike someone nicknamed “Rocky”?
One reason for his quick acceptance in Chicago was the man he replaced, his father, Bill, happened to be one of the most disliked owners ever, nicknamed “Dollar Bill” for his frugal ways.
To his credit, Rocky immediately rejected the backward business model his father built, putting home games on TV and hiring marketing expert John McDonough away from the Cubs to run the organization.
But after McDonough was abruptly fired as Hawks president without reason Monday, we’ll soon find out whether Rocky’s Teflon image will also bite the dust. After all, McDonough made Wirtz, whether the Hawks chairman cares to admit it or not.
It was McDonough who transformed the Hawks from laughingstock to league power, who brought back iconic players Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita and Tony Esposito as team ambassadors and who rehired beloved broadcaster Pat Foley after the Hawks had let him go for being too honest about the team.
Before agreeing to become Hawks president, McDonough made it a condition that he would be allowed to rehire Foley. Over the last two seasons, Foley was often the only reason to continue watching games once the snow melted and the playoffs were a mirage.
Why McDonough was fired during the suspended season remains a mystery. Wirtz told The Athletic in March that McDonough, general manager Stan Bowman and coach Jeremy Colliton were all safe, so something happened recently that made him change his mind.
A press release issued late Monday said “Wirtz cited the COVID-19 crisis and the league suspension as an opportunity to reassess the team’s future and to set a renewed positive direction for the organization.”
So does that mean he’ll also reassess Bowman’s future?
We’ll have to wait and see. Because there’s no hockey in the foreseeable future, he might as well let the mystery deepen and keep the Hawks in the news.
“While we can reassure our fans there will be hockey again, no one knows what that will look like,” Wirtz said. “What we do know is that it will take a new mindset to successfully transition the organization to win both on and off the ice.”
I don’t know Wirtz at all, but I did interview him back in March after the NHL season was suspended. He professed hope the season would restart soon.
“Hopefully, if we open again, it’s going to be a mad dash to the finish line,” he said. “Who knows what’s going to happen? Some of the teams were doing really well, and you break their momentum. … Let’s put it this way: We haven’t given up on the season, even though we were going to be long shots. As they say, funnier things have happened.”
Naturally, I felt the need to inform him the Hawks had no chance of making the playoffs. He didn’t really respond, so I politely changed the subject. Wirtz then told The Athletic: “I know some of the writers, I talked to somebody from the Trib, he said he wrote off the Hawks after the back-to-back losses to the Red Wings. But then I said, I haven’t given it up.”
Apologies for being that somebody, but it doesn’t take a hockey expert to see the Hawks were too inconsistent and too far behind to have a realistic chance of getting in. Maybe Wirtz realized, after a month and a half of reflection, that guy from the Trib was right and his decision to fire McDonough stemmed from the team’s inability to make the postseason again.
Who knows? Does it even matter?
No one is assured of lifetime employment, with the obvious exception of Sox pitching coach Don Cooper. So if McDonough is the fall guy for the Hawks’ fall from grace, that’s Wirtz’s prerogative as the owner.
McDonough, as expected, had nothing but praise for Wirtz when he finally issued a statement Tuesday, saying the Wirtz family and the organization have “class a la mode.” It was reminiscent of another conscious uncoupling of longtime friends — the no-blame divorce in October between Theo Epstein and Joe Maddon.
So what’s next? Wirtz handed the president’s job to his son, Danny, on an interim basis in the great Chicago tradition of nepotism. Unlike his dad and late grandfather, Danny Wirtz has no nickname that I know of. The Hawks might cast a nationwide search for a new president or stay in house with someone such as vice president of marketing Pete Hassen, who is widely respected throughout the organization.
Either way, the McDonough era is over, and Rocky and Danny will have to decide on Bowman’s future and whether to go full-metal rebuild. Twitter already has a few suggestions on Bowman, some of which are printable.
Whatever the next move is, at least they’ll have a while to think about it. Whether Rocky still gets the benefit of the doubt from disgruntled Hawks fans is a question that may be answered soon.
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