Ain’t We Funkin’
Funky [fungh-kee]
adjective – funkier, funkiest
adverb – funkily
noun – funkiness
1. Jazz. Having an earthly, blues based quality or character.
2. Having an offensive smell: evil smelling; foul.
By Rich Lindbloom
While driving home from work the other day, I was adjusting the dial on the Sirius Radio towards the 24 hour Grateful Dead station. I momentarily paused when a song caught my eye on a station called “The Groove.” I mean, how can you pass up a song entitled Ain’t We Funkin,’ without at least giving it a passing nod? Almost immediately, my head started bobbin’ and my shoulders were moving to the grooving of the pulsating beat.
I could imagine the band playing in a dark, packed bar somewhere, with every inch of the dance floor being contested. Even if you had no funk in you, like say a David Bowie – (“Funk, I don’t think I have anything to do with funk. I’ve never considered myself funky,” – I don’t know Ziggy, you dressed pretty funky), certain songs can help you get your funk on. Go ahead, play that funky music white boy… – you know what I’m talkin’ bout – yeah – play that funky music now! Even someone wound as tight as Jonathan Toews could probably bust a move on that one.
It turned out the song was by a band called The Brothers Johnson. Even the way they say their name, “The Brothers Johnson” instead of “The Johnson Brothers” exudes inordinate funkiness. Again, I was heading towards the Dead station, but had to stop – these guys were fun! A boring ride home turned into a party train on Route 83. Take a gander at the picture of the two brothers above. Do they look uptight to you? Hell no, they could care less if they hit two cross bars and a post. That song was the epitome of funkafide filth.
The Hawks on the other hand lately – there’s no other way to put this – are in a filthy funk. And it’s not the bluesy, earth based Jazz.
There is definitely something funky going down, and it is pretty foul smelling. In case you didn’t hear it, the word out on the beat is if the playoffs started today, the Hawks wouldn’t be in them. I’m scared. Yep, the Windy City has turned into “Funky Town,” especially coupled with the Bears premature demise.
Coach Q seems to be on a one-man mission to set a record, for even him, with a Rubix Cube type propensity for funkier line changes each period. Sort of a funky, funkier, funkiest mindset. To be quite blunt, however, the lines appear to be all funked up.
It’s hard to get your funk on when, when one funky bounce of the puck will put you in Coach Q’s dog house. This results in uptight players – severely cramping their groove thang – no funk, no spunk as they say.
It was either one of the intelligentsia from Hockeenight or Fifth Feather who put it best; “Does anyone have any idea what the Hawk lines were after the first period against _______. (fill in the blank)
In one of the most incongruous, mind numbing comments I’ve ever read, Mark Lazerus of the Sun-Times reported, “Believe it or not, Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville doesn’t want to change lines every game, every period, every shift.” That’s the sort of statement that makes beer shoot out of my nose. I think I just saw an elephant fly. Or maybe I was just looking at a bottle of Delirium Tremens.
Now I enjoy Lazerus’s hockey reporting, but that statement does not pass the eye test. Coach Q’s wild cards this year are Bickell and Morin, with Shaw coming in a close third. They are the trigger that get the line permutations rolling in Coach Q’s expansive cranium. As soon as they make a mistake they get benched. This, of course, results in an instant discombobulation of any continuity. (i.e. – no flow) As the Felster once put it, it’s a “You, you and you go in,” moment. Merciful Father in heaven, save us.
It makes me think. What would happen if one of the funkiest persons to ever walk on the face of this earth popped onto the Hawks locker room? Work with me here, but can you imagine James Brown strutting into the Hawks locker room with his entourage, taking a look around, and exclaiming, “Q-dawg, it’s too funky in here!”
Look, we all know the Hawks are at their funkiest when they are rolling four lines. Benching 11 or 29 for the same mistakes our prima-donna’s are also making, is bad ju-ju. Kaner had an egregious turn over in that game, but apparently he carries the “Get Out of Jail Free” card. I’m sure no one on the ice felt worse than Bicks after his gaffe against Ottawa. I guarantee you Bickell would have done everything in his power to make up for that mistake. Unfortunately, he rode the pine the rest of the game. Someone needs to tell Coach Q two wrongs don’t make a right. An inspired #29 is a formidable force, no doubt. Benching players leads to an uptight, mojo-less team.
Obviously, the Hawks are as tight as a bull’s ass at the moment. It’s a huge part of the problem – they clearly got no flow. (A tip of the hat to Sam Fels who clued me in on what it means to have no flow during Versteeg’s first tenure with the Hawks that ended in that rap disaster!) Maybe Coach Q should take James Brown’s advice-make it funky. Loosen things up by taking time out to teach the Hawks “The Funky Chicken,” at practice one day.
No doubt about it – this Hawk team needs a little soul brother in them right about now. As the song goes, “a little bit of soul and you really start grooving.” The Funky Chicken Dance is somewhat advanced because it involves a lot of hip movement. (Lack of hip movement has always been one of the criticisms of my dance moves. It’s kind of a honky-thang.) I did do ok until the instructor threw in the foot movements, way too much going on at that point.
Go ahead, give it a whirl. It’s a lot harder than you think. On the current Hawk roster, I’m thinking only Oduya or one of the younger Swede’s could nail the advanced dance steps. Maybe they could get Jamal Mayers to lead the team. I guarantee you nobody would laugh at him-he would funk up your face. (Personally, I’m liking Jamal’s between period commentaries. Although sometimes I think about putting on sun glances due to the glare reflecting off his shiny dome.)
By the way, this song should in no way be confused with the wedding standard “The Chicken Dance,” which stresses much more upper body movement. Did you ever stop to wonder who made up the Chicken Dance moves; or how many beers they had imbibed? I can assure you it wasn’t James Brown or The Brothers Johnson!
Then again, maybe all the Hawks needed to regain their funk was to go out and administer a 5-0 beat down of the Canadiens. Currently, they are tied for most points in the Eastern Conference. By the way, I’m sure Subban could quickly master The Funky Chicken moves. I’m also sure that kid will win another Norris trophy before all is said and done. Funky Chicken moves and the Norris trophy – the kid is the total package!
Much was made of the Hawk players not going to the dirty areas of the ice recently. As Eddy-O has noted at some point in every one of the last 320 games I’ve watched, “All you young hockey players out there, if you want to get rewarded, you need to go to the front of the net.” This is just me thinking, but with 26 shots on goal in the third period against Toronto, a few of them had to come from the dirty area, no?
The Hawks are averaging a league leading 37.9 shots per game, followed by Minnesota(!) at 34.9 and Canucks and Islanders right at 32. Eventually, the levee was bound to burst. An inordinate amount of hockey success is dependent upon which way the puck bounces after it hits the herd of caribou in front of the net. In addition, the Hawks have also run into some pretty hot goal tenders. Now we all know who Michael Hutchinson is at least.
To summarily come to the conclusion that the Hawks were not creating enough traffic in front of the net, appears to be grasping at straws. If Lady Luck is not smiling upon you, all the traffic of the inbound Kennedy or Eisenhower in the morning wouldn’t help. If there were one area the Hawks could possibly improve it would be their marksmanship. The game against Winnipeg might have turned out differently if Sharpie, (get well soon), shot the puck one more inch further to the left on his breakaway. This is me grasping at straws now, but would a well-placed wrister be more effective than the typically less accurate slap shot.
A case in point was Desharnais’s blast from about 15 feet to the right of Crow in the first period. Did anyone watching the game ever see that puck? I think they showed two replays of it, and I still have no idea where that puck went. I think Eddy-O said it might have been deflected, but even he couldn’t be sure watching the replay. I do know that it didn’t end up in the net, which I suspect it missed entirely.
Coach Q rolled the dice on a fourth line consisting of Bickell/Kruger/Versteeg, and it came up snake eyes. Of all the lines that came out of Coach Q’s Random Line Generator, this was one I thought would be lucky to see less than 5 minutes of ice time. Instead our makeshift fourth line accounted for two of the Hawk five tallies. Go figure. Both Kruger and Versteeg skated over 13 minutes, with Bickell on the ice for 11:17. The moral of that story is, “roll with four lines!” At least until the playoffs, that is if we can somehow make them – remember, “if the playoffs started today…”
My favorite play of the tussle in Montreal was Tazer’s pass to Crazy 88’s. Does Toews have eyes in the back of his head? ‘Filthy, filthy, funky, Papa Jonny you’re our man.”
By the way, Crawford is now 6th in the league in save % – .938 – and 2nd in the league in Goals against average at 1.53/game. Of course, that is all do to the offensive juggernaut in front of him. Anyone could play goalie for the Blackhawks. In a very strange set of circumstances, take a look GAA and Save % for Lunquist(2.86, .901), Price(2.94, .907) and Varlamov (2.75, .925). Get down with your bad self Cor-dawg! “You be funkin’!”
TVR continues to amaze me. Is it really true this kid is a rookie? Can you imagine a Leddy/TVR third d-tandem. By the way, Leddy has 3 goals and 3 assists, and is a +5 this year for the Islanders. Surprisingly, all his points have come at even strength. As Carly Simon would sing, “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you got till it’s gone…” Of course, we all know, Leddy was not funky enough for Coach Q, or maybe he was too funky.
Saad/Richards/Morin gave the Hawks a spark in the first period. Maybe Q does know what he’s doing. My guess is Morin is going to be dropping the gloves soon. Hopefully it will be against someone in his weight class. Expect Coach Q to bump his ice time up about five minutes in the next game. Price committed highway robbery against Morin in the second period. Sometimes scoring against these NHL goalies is the equivalent of putting a square peg in a round hole. Expect both Smith and Morin to contribute a bit more with Sharpie on the sideline.
Ironically, just when Coach Q had chanced upon a “ain’t we funkin” lineup, Sharp gets hurt. Back to square one I guess. The latest lines appear to be 28/19/88, 20/65/81, 29/16/23 and with Regin being recalled from The Big R, 12/91/11. I can get down with that. Although we all know by the middle of the first period against the Capitals on Friday, Coach Q will have them all funked up.
Whatever the lineups, here’s to hoping the Hawks be funkin’ on Friday.
Other important stuff:
If you’re driving along at about twilight and someone starts flashing their lights at you, check to see if your lights are on before giving them the finger.
Call Ripley’s, Big Hoss threw a big check in the first period.
Hjarlmarsson’s shiner is funky! Hope he continues to play with a shield.
Did you ever consider cranking the radio, getting out of your car and busting a move at a stop light? The only thing stopping me was I wasn’t sure if you could get a ticket for that.
My goal “is to be the funkiest.”
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Rich Lindbloom
