I Can Only Conclude That Hawks Fans Have Been Gaslit

The Athletic's fan survey is out. Do Hawks fans really know what they're watching?

Perhaps ever since I stopped standing outside Gate 3 every home game, I've lost touch with what Hawks fans think and feel. Both of those things are probably better for my overall health, but definitely ups my immediate confusion and ennui. Despite being one, I appear to be among a minority, if not completely on my own, when it comes to buying what the Hawks are selling for the past few years. I don't go to many games anymore, but I can't see where regularly watching what was on the ice this year should change what I'm seeing. But apparently it might.

"This is like that episode of Twilight Zone where he wakes up the same but everyone else is different!"

"Which episode was that?"

"Oh, they were all like that!"

Mark Lazerus and Scott Powers released their Hawks fan survey on The Athletic, and I must not be getting the soma the Hawks are handing out at the gates instead of bobbleheads that have mollified most of the fandom. Everything is fine now. The plan is proceeding perfectly. It will all be ok soon. Krusty is coming.

I'm trying to think of another team in town that can get away with four straight finishes in last and everyone is just fine with it. At least Sox fans just gave up. Perhaps the constant selling that Darren Pang does during every game is for this very reason. So that those who tune in every game have their mind poisoned into not believing, or not caring, what's in front of their eyes. Maybe I'm impervious to the waves Pang sends out that others are more susceptible to. I've always been stubborn, I guess. The hockey on display is terrible, but that's ok, because the hockey that is promised,

that will be based on the hockey we're seeing but apparently doesn't exist, will be better!

It's actually quite a magic trick.

Let's go through it. The first question is confidence level on Danny Wirtz as owner, which is middling. He's firmly in the "meh" territory.

Which makes sense, because Danny hasn't given you anything to judge him on, really. The CHSN stuff was basically in motion when he took over, though he probably had a hand in it or more when he was president, and other than that he's just been there (which as we know with the Hawks is the biggest qualification for any job). Most fans know he's not in charge of the hockey side, and most fans would want that, given what we all lived through with his grandfather.

Danny is probably still drawing some positive water from how he handled the Kyle Beach case, as most of the villainy is attached to his father, or Quenneville, or Bowman, and it feels like he's the one who fired Bowman and then had to put out the fire his father created a few months later. Or people just don't care.

CHSN appears to be the major bone of contention, except fans love Rick Ball and Darren Pang. Which is a little at odds with each other, but fine. Fans don't like an additional streamer they have to find, the production of it sucks, and they know about other ones around the country that are free. All genuine complaints.

Danny might also suffer from not having nearly as many levers to pull that his father did when he took over. Rocky had his faults for sure, but he at least brought the Hawks somewhere in the area of a modern sports organization from the absolute dark ages. That's not available to Danny, so it might feel like he's just less adept and active. He just has less to do.

He should be getting more backlash for extending his GM with no tangible, on-ice results, but...

Kyle Davidson still generates a lot of confidence. I can't tell you what this is based on, other than forlorn hope on things fans can't see. No player, other than Connor Bedard, has "popped" when finally arriving on United Center ice. What does Levshunov do? What does Rinzel do? What does Nazar do? What jumps off the screen from them? Greene, Lardis, Moore, they're all here and played at least a season. What's special? Maybe there's something special about Frondell, we don't know. He's also a #3 pick, so there'd better be.

Yet Davidson can point to the number of prospects, which are only a result of the terrible product he has put on the ice for five years, and people just eat it up. Any idiot can put out a terrible team and vacuum up top five picks and then have people jizz stain the prospects list. None of them speak to any deft skill as a team-builder. And yet...

"We are entering the next phase of the rebuild. Davidson did a good job accumulating picks, and so far, the draft picks are trending well. The next question is, is Davidson the man to take them to a new level?"

What's trending well? They finished 31st! If even most of these guys were "trending well," they wouldn't have lost 11 of their last 14 and looked disinterested while doing so! "Trending well" apparently means they actually found the United Center on their GPS and put on their gear correctly.

Moving on to Jeff Blashill, who also registers a majority score of 4. How?! Blashill instituted the most boring system possible, which the Hawks didn't even play well, no one developed other than maybe Bedard for 10 weeks, and Hawks fans are more than confident in him? He has no resume or track record that glows in any category the Hawks need, and yet fans are still gleefully handing him the keys? Do any of these people have teenagers? Do teenagers even drive anymore?

This team also just stopped caring, to the point where he had to tell the press at the end of the season, "No they definitely still care!"which means they definitely didn't, and then immediately held a practice with two days to go where he had to yell at everyone throughout the whole thing. Yep, all looks good to the rabble!

We move on to the fans' opinion of the season itself, which the majority gave a "C." So everyone's confident in the GM, and everyone's confident in the coach, but the actual season they put forth is barely acceptable. The walls are closing in, people.

The runaway leader for most disappointing player was Andre Burakovsky. What, exactly, were the expectations for Burakovsky? He was a salary dump. He played so badly in Seattle they paid him to go away. SEATTLE. I know Hawks fans don't really watch other hockey, but they do know a salary dump. Or they should. Or I assumed. Maybe this is all my fault. Maybe everything is my fault. I have authored my own demise.

Overall confidence in the rebuild is still at a 4, even though this season was a C, and in their first season where they really had to show their developmental chops, they basically failed across the board. I didn't see this many things that weren't there when I was on acid at Red Rocks.

Then Hawks fans overwhelmingly want Davidson to acquired an established top six forward, even though they have more than average confidence in the rebuild. Only 15 percent said they wanted Davidson to stay the course. This is the kids trying to design Funzo.

Somehow, the Hawks intermission and studio crew got a B, even though it's filled with people that have the charisma and knowledge of a drive-thru clown's mouth. Has the fandom been fed shit for so long, both on and off the ice, it no longer knows what actual food tastes like? It's the only assumption.