Memories of Searching for a Game

I'm flipping through "I Want My MTV," which pretty much makes clear that drugs fueled the early days of that channel. And yet, there are some pretty distinct accounts given from artists who go on to say that they were caught up in the current of the decade.

Me, well, my book on the 1980s would be "I Want My Hockey on TV." I had taken my first newspaper job -- it was in northern Indiana -- and there pretty much was a game of the week on ESPN and an odd St. Louis Blues game on the short-lived SportsTime channel. Todd Donoho was one of the big voices on the channel that, when not serving up basketball games from every Midwestern college not in the Big Ten, found time to show you highlights of every game from these same Midwestern Colleges.

Elsewhere in the Midwest, you might get a Royals or Cardinals game tossed in, but not in northern Indiana. You got basketball, more basketball, and then, whoops, how did that Blues game find its way there?

SportsChannel from Chicago was a year away and that meant that most of the Blackhawks' games were radio only, if you could pick up the weak signal of WIND-AM. And in the black hole that I call northern Indiana, you could not. You could pick up pro hockey from Fort Wayne, Detroit, Toledo and Rochester, but not the Hawks.

Road trips would follow. My friend Kurt and I would head to Nick's Sportspages in Dolton, Ill., and to the Olympia in Goshen, Ind. That last joint was mid-week games only. In the towns in which we worked, no NHL games -- NONE -- could be found when college basketball was on the menu.

We decided to search for a bar in a town that would allow us to go to the game without spending large amounts of money on tolls and gas. I found a joint listed in the South Bend Tribune that said it had a satellite dish. Being a Sunday night with no college basketball on, Kurt and I headed to South Bend to watch the Blackhawks-Sabres game from the Aud.

A quiet little joint, pretty much a box layout with the bar on your left as you walked in. Ahead of you was the snack table (salad fixings, for the most part, and popcorn) and a juke box. To the right and behind you were booths. The big projection screen was in the corner on the right, facing the snack table. At the center of the joint were four high tables with two stools each.

The best view of the game required you to sit atop the most painful seats in the joint. But it was hockey, and the beer was cheap, so we stayed. Late in the first period, a few of the regulars started to give us the stink eye after we applauded an end-to-end rush and goal by Gilbert Perreault. We explained that though we did favor the Hawks, you had to admire the skills of a great player like Perreault.



Not the right answer, as the regulars just wanted to get blotto in private. Though dirty looks were exchanged, we were paying customers. So the bar's owner came by and offered us a pitcher on the house. Bar owner's on our side, so we will watch and cheer when we want.

Somewhere around the end of the second period, things started to change. The regulars had been beaten back, so they were not a threat. But students from Notre Dame and St. Mary's -- we knew this because they appeared to shop at the university bookstore for some updated sweatshirts with the school name on them before coming in -- and they were not interested in the game.

They say Kurt and I, the only two people sitting at the bar tables, and went straight to the bar owner. Slowly, tables were disappearing one at a time. More students were squeezing into the booths along the edge. Soon the regulars were gone.

Just Kurt and I, the Hawks and Sabres, and the preppy-esque mob from Our Lady of Perpetual Tuition Increases.

The joint owner produced a microphone, cut the sound on the game, and announced that dancing -- DANCING? -- would commence in 30 minutes. And it did, with about 10 minutes left in the game. But we did not move, and the owner did not move us because we still had cash on the table and glasses to fill. But now, we had the preppy mob moving all around us, proving that this particular sample of college students were in need of some remedial gym classes to overcome the poor coordination. BECAUSE YOU SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO DANCE IN PUBLIC THAT BADLY!

The game finished and it was time to leave. The owner was happy to collect both the table and the waitress was happy to collect a tip.

As we walked out, Kurt and I spotted two unattached members of the preppy mob. "Turn to You" by the GoGos came on and, well, we had these girls spinning on the floor, enjoying moves that would make Gilbert Perreault and Denis Savard proud.

And when the song ended, Kurt and I headed to our cars and left. We made our stand. We saw our hockey game and now we were leaving on our own terms. Hmm, a bar dedicated to hockey and music. I'll have to try that concept. I'll call it Vic's Stereo Lounge.