Hip, Hip Hooray, for Christmas Vacation!
Last night I was watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation as I do most every year around this time. Blackhawks fans should know this movie well as a couple of the characters (including Chevy Chase) sport Blackhawks’ jerseys throughout the movie. It’s also a classic Christmas movie from one of our generation’s most brilliant (if not properly lauded) film makers, John Hughes.
In the movie, Chevy Chase’s “Clark Griswold” wears the now classic ‘Griswold 00′ Blackhawks jersey in the scenes where he starts to lose his grip on reality thanks to some of the most rude, vulgar, and annoying relatives you ever want to meet. At the United Center, the ‘Griswold’ jersey — which is kind of pricey at $191.50 — has come to symbolize older generation hockey. (You know, the guys who were there long before you were and who still call jerseys, sweaters?) And that’s ok. Those guys have watched a lot of bad hockey for a lot of years, have paid their dues, and now deserve to flaunt it a little in the newbie hockey fans’ faces.
It’s also kind of like those guys who wear the Charlestown Chiefs jerseys. If you know what Slap Shot is, then you’re “in the know.” If you don’t know what “putting on the foil” means, well then, you may not be an avid hockey fan (or for some, a hockey fan at all).
Again, that’s ok. The jerseys, the foil, the taped glasses, it’s all in good fun. Except when it’s not. Last month, Jay Zawaski of AM 670’s The Score offered Hawks fans some “hockey etiquette” and scolded,
Listen, you are far from the first person to realize that Clark Griswold wore a Hawks jersey in Christmas Vacation. It’s been done. Please don’t do it.
Boy, there’s always one party pooper in the bunch isn’t there? What’s wrong with the Griswold jersey? What’s wrong with having a little fun? Isn’t that kind of the point of hockey? It’s one of the only sports left where you can be rowdy, as a player and a fan.
So, forget all the peripheral babble from yuppies who would actually dare to assign manners and etiquette to hockey, and party on Hawks fans. And Jay, you may want to consider taking that hockey stick out of your keister.
December 3rd, 2009 at 11:19 am
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.