Rocky Wirtz Went Absolutely Ballistic On Mark Lazerus For Asking A Question About The Organization's Response To The Kyle Beach Situation. A Must Watch For Blackhawks Fans.

This was an absolutely UNACCEPTABLE response to a very valid question from Mark Lazerus. There is no getting around it. It is a question that the Blackhawks knew would be coming, who it would be coming from, and quite frankly it was embarrassing how it was handled. The vitriol. The dismissiveness. The anger that was coming from Rocky was totally off-putting, tone deaf, and simply wrong. 

The answer was embarrassing and shocking, but the fact that he said it at all makes you think about the preparation for this Town Hall that they to which THEY invited fans and media to ask questions. You KNEW this question was coming. If you knew it was coming how can your answer essentially be "we aren't talking about 2010. We are looking forward and also fuck you for asking". That smacks of, to borrow a phrase from the NCAA, lack of institutional control. Which, you could say, was a major contributing factor to how the Beach assault happened in the first place. So, yeah, totally fair question to ask and to give that response was a failure. Also a failure to shutdown what would probably be a thoughtful answer from Danny when he tried to save the panel from that moment. Rocky also did the same thing to Phil Thompson of the Tribune. 

Read your fucking Shakespeare, Rock. Doth protest too much. 

Rocky and Danny Wirtz are both trending nationally on twitter. The old saying "there's no such thing as bad press"...well you can take that expression and throw it in the fire forever because this is BAD press. And...it really overshadows what was otherwise a VERY positive, thoughtful, and detailed town hall from Blackhawks leadership. Jaime Faulkner was impressive in her debut of sorts. I'd like to hear more from her. I'd like to hear more from Danny. I am so thankful for what Rocky did to revive a dead hockey market and give it back to the fans, but he needs to be put in mothballs permanently. Maybe remove his Chairman title and replace it with "emeritus" which is code for "this guy is important, but can't be in charge anymore".