Blackhawks retire Hossa's No. 81: Who's next, who was missing and memories of Marián (2024)

CHICAGO — Signs of the Blackhawks’ glorious recent past were everywhere on Sunday afternoon.

Oh, look, there’s Johnny Oduya, his beard resplendent as ever (albeit with a few streaks of distinguished gray mixed in) walking by the home locker room. Hey, there’s Andrew Ladd right behind him. Here’s Pat Foley, lingering in the press box well before puck drop, joking that United Center security must have fallen asleep for him to have gotten in.

Then there were seven of the biggest names in franchise history, seated at center ice, side by side. Six of them — Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, Patrick Sharp and Niklas Hjalmarsson — wore their red Blackhawks jerseys. One of them — the great Marián Hossa — wore a slim-fitting black suit as the man of the hour. The Core, all together, with their old pal the Stanley Cup perched on a table a few feet away.

Each of them being introduced by emcee Eddie Olczyk, maybe the only person in modern franchise history as beloved as they are, was the perfect finishing touch to a perfect (if long) pregame ceremony honoring Hossa and raising his No. 81 to the United Center rafters.

With more than 21,000 fans on hand to witness it — Hossa even prompted a boisterous ‘DETROIT SUCKS’ chant, the pause clearly written into his 20-minute speech — it felt like the good old days again. For a moment, at least. We can (and will) talk about the harsher reality of the present and the long road and longer odds the Blackhawks face in their quest to bring that Cup and this vibe back to Chicago for the next several months, maybe several years. For one night, let’s talk Hossa, jersey retirements, and maybe some of the more conspicuous (and necessary) absences of the evening.

Scott, you’ve been neck-deep in Hossa World for a couple of years now, helping him write his autobiography (buy it here!). What’s your initial takeaway from the ceremony?

Powers: I sort of felt like I was back in time covering the Blackhawks. There have been some grand on-ice celebrations in recent years with player milestones, Pat Foley’s departure, etc., but this was done up like one of the Stanley Cup banner-raising ceremonies. My immediate thoughts were of everything that once was and how that all has been gone for many years now. As Hossa mentioned in his speech, there will probably be a number more of these ceremonies in the coming years.

I know we’ve talked about it a lot, but now that Hossa’s number is in the rafters, there is more intrigue on who will go up next. As much as Hossa had a special career, partly with the Blackhawks, he wouldn’t have been my first choice to have his number retired from the seven who won three Cups. I do feel like Hossa holds a special place in Rocky Wirtz’s heart, and this was largely about favoritism. Which is fine, but you have to put the other six up now, right? Again, it’ll be odd if any of the seven is excluded from that.

As for Hossa’s speech, none of it was a surprise. He and I discussed a lot about how he went about his Hockey Hall of Fame speech, and it felt like that was a bit of a road map for this one. He touched on a lot of the greatest hits and knew where to get some laughs. Of course, the mention of Joel Quenneville and Al MacIsaac probably raised some eyebrows. It’s not very well advertised, but Quenneville wrote the foreword for Hossa’s book. Quenneville was chosen before the Jenner & Block report was released. Hossa wanted to keep Quenneville after everything was known. It wasn’t my book, so I didn’t have a say, but I did raise my concerns (Powers was the co-author of Hossa’s autobiography, “Marián Hossa: My Journey from Trencín to the Hall of Fame”). Still, Hossa thought it was important to include Quenneville because he was Hossa’s favorite coach. From that standpoint, I’m not surprised he named Quenneville in his speech. It would have been more shocking for Quenneville to be present. But unless Quenneville coaches again in the NHL, I’m not sure he will ever be back to the United Center. His absence will always be a reminder of what happened in 2010.

Lazerus: This is where everybody in the comments section starts yelling at us for mentioning the Jenner & Block report, but like it or not, it’s part of the story every time the Blackhawks invoke their Stanley Cup years. Quenneville’s absence spoke volumes (as did Rocky’s). And the fact is, it’s hard to envision Quenneville ever returning to the United Center in any capacity other than visiting coach (which absolutely, unequivocally shouldn’t happen, but knowing the NHL, almost surely will). He’ll never be feted in Chicago the way Hossa just was. He can’t be.

When we sat down with Danny Wirtz and Jaime Faulkner last month while reporting our story on the one-year anniversary of the report and the fallout that ensued, we asked specifically about the organization distancing itself from the 2010 team in the immediate aftermath, and reestablishing those associations ever since. Brian Campbell and Sharp are on the payroll. Hossa likely will be someday. Hjalmarsson had a legacy night last season. And there will be more nights like tonight in the coming years, including planned celebrations for the 2013 and 2015 championship teams. Wirtz took a long time to think about how he wanted to address it.

“We’re not naive to the incidents that happened around that time, but I guess (we’re) trying to live in a space where we can both celebrate that moment — which was an amazing achievement for so many people — but also (be) respectful and remorseful for the things that happened at the same time. It’s hard to do both.”

It will continue to be hard to do both. But they’ll certainly continue to do both.

So who will be next? Well, for years, I assumed that Kane, Toews and Keith would get individual banners, and The Core would get a collective banner. (I also was sure up until about 18 months ago that Quenneville would get a banner, but that’s certainly not happening anytime soon.) Now, I don’t see how you can’t retire all seven three-time champions now that you’ve retired Hossa. Seabrook, Sharp and Hjalmarsson all were integral parts of those championship teams and were here longer. Seabrook was the heart and soul and a homegrown Blackhawk icon. Sharp was acquired from Philadelphia, but was in Chicago forever, starting before the renaissance. And you can’t keep referring to Hjalmarsson as the “unsung hero” of those teams (as Hossa did on Sunday) and not include him, too. Take any one of those seven players away, and the 2010s play out differently.

And let’s not forget about Doug Wilson and Steve Larmer, who are long overdue. The Blackhawks have opened up a fascinating can of worms by retiring Hossa’s jersey. It’ll be fun to watch it play out. First-world problems, for sure.

the hand-wringing about whether Hjalmarsson and Sharp should get it is silly….let a bunch of other dudes win three cups for this franchise and then worry if there are too many

— Tim Stewart (@timstwrt) November 21, 2022

Powers: Hossa mentioned in his speech how he had gotten Larmer’s Blackhawks jersey as a kid. I thought it would have been funny if he had used that platform to stump for Larmer’s number to be retired next.

I definitely watched Sunday’s ceremony differently if I didn’t help write Hossa’s book. I felt like I got to know him and his family at such a personal level over the last nearly two years. The book process began in December 2020. I could tell you as many interesting stories about his parents, brother and wife as I could tell you about Hossa.

The one thing I was curious about going into the book was whether the Hossa we sort of got to know in the media and the one everyone never seemed to have a bad word to say about was the actual one behind closed doors. I can honestly say he’s that same guy. We did so many Zoom and phone calls over 18 months. I visited him in Slovakia. I was probably bothersome at times because we had deadlines to meet, and I felt pressure in a lot of different ways of getting the book right. Through it all, he was that same person. There were times where we both had to be honest about the book, and had to make decisions about what should stay or go or what needed to be improved. I came out with a ton of respect for him when it was finished. (We did need some time apart for a bit, haha.)

His place in Blackhawks’ history is well-documented. He was the piece in a lot of ways to push them over the top. He arrived with a lot of hype because of his contract and lived up to it. That’s difficult to do. We’ll see who else gets their number retired, but he’s certainly worthy of that honor because of everything he brought to that team on and off the ice.

Final thoughts?

Lazerus: The book’s great, and Scott didn’t pay me to say that. (I’ll charge him in Irish whiskey when he inevitably makes me watch an Ireland World Cup game.) Like Scott, I covered Hossa for six seasons, but I can’t even count the number of new and fascinating (and often really funny) things I learned about him in the book. Go get it.

As for me, I always thought of Hossa as an alien, some sort of being from another universe or dimension. There are players that seem like normal guys, and there are players who are just a different species. And not just because he was, in Kris Versteeg’s immortal words, built like a Greek God. I always think back to a morning practice in Raleigh years ago, when the three of us on the beat trudged into the visitors’ locker room at PNC Arena bleary-eyed after 6 a.m. flights from some other city in the dead of winter. Sharp, a normal human being who lived in the real world, saw us and said, “Early flight?” Hossa, overhearing us, then asked, “Wait, you guys aren’t on the team plane? You have to fly commercial?” I laughed and said, “Marián, you’ve been in the league like 15 years. You thought we were on the plane this whole time?” Superstars can be that way, anointed seemingly from birth, living in a different reality than the rest of us.

But at the same time, Hossa was always unfailingly polite. Unfailingly pleasant. Unfailingly professional to work with and generous with his time. In our 10-plus seasons on the beat, he’s undoubtedly the Blackhawks player I most enjoyed watching play the game of hockey. He was so big, so strong, so skilled, so graceful, so committed to good defense. He’s exactly what everyone always said he was — the perfect hockey player. I may quibble with the Blackhawks raising his No. 81 to the United Center rafters, but if I can break from my journalistic objectivity for just a moment, I’m genuinely happy for him all the same. A class act, all the way.

(Top photo: Jamie Sabau / Getty Images)