Hearing Quenneville Talk About Toews And Kane's Competitive Streak Has Me All Gassed Up For The Season

"The thing that we enjoyed was that these guys really wanted to win and you could taste it right away. These guys were not just happy to be good, young players. They wanted to be champions.” On knowing the Blackhawks had something special"--Joel Quenneville

Listening to Joel talk about his former players got me so fired up. We had incredible stories all weekend long from Joel, but I swear he gets a little sparkle in his eye and his mustache moves when he talks about Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane. Two guys that he helped shape and mold. Two guys that meet his minimum standard every shift is what it sounds like. The most important thing to Joel is being competitive. He hammered that home with me accidentally. Didn't matter if he was talking about Peter Forsberg, or Dave Tippett, or Rod Brind'Amour, or Toews and Kane. The guys that he loves the most are the ones that give away nothing. The guys that are relentless. You want to be successful with Joel behind the bench you just have to be smart and a fierce, nasty, motherfucker on the ice. It is clear that Toews and Kane are those guys. Kane gets better each and every year despite being surrounded by less and less. I can't wait to see what Toews brings to the table this year. You know he is chomping at the bit to get after it. Kane always comes back with a new trick up his sleeve. He is better at 33 than he was at 23 which is a very rare thing in the NHL and especially the case when the guy in question was lighting the league on fire as a 23 year old. 

I said my piece about how I feel about the suits earlier. They deserve to be canned and outed for what they are. I can't help but root for the players though. Sweaters>Suits. I want the team to be successful. Listening to Joel talk about the guys that he coached and some of the new guys he is familiar with gave me chills. I don't know if the team will be good enough to make the playoffs or if Colliton can put them in a position to actually be good, but the roster on paper is so much better than it has been since 2017. I want one more deep playoff run with 19 and 88 dominating and making more memories.