The Chicago Blackhawks will miss the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since the 2007-2008 season.
Over the past 10 seasons, the Blackhawks have won three Stanley Cups. While there won't be a Stanley Cup being raised in the Windy City this June, Chicago Tribune columnist David Haugh said the team's decision to keep General Manager Stan Bowman and Coach Joel Quenneville is sound.
"Passion compelled typically mild-mannered Blackhawks General Manager Stan Bowman to proclaim from the podium that getting swept in the 2017 playoffs by the Predators was 'unacceptable.' " Haugh wrote.
"Bowman channeled that frustration by letting his heart overrule his head, making moves that helped change a 109-point team into one that missed the playoffs. He reacted emotionally by trading core players Artemi Panarin and Niklas Hjalmarsson, knee-jerk deals classified, in retrospect, as change for the sake of change.
"One disappointing year later, Hawks President John McDonough just guaranteed nobody will accuse the organization of overreacting this offseason.
"McDonough announced Bowman and Coach Joel Quenneville will keep their jobs despite an underachieving team guided by 'One Goal' missing the postseason for the first time in 10 years. The Hawks haven't won a playoff game since 2016 or a playoff series since the 2015 Stanley Cup Final, yet the organization's response will include inaction more than words. Any urgency won't include a vacancy.
"Is the championship window still open? Right or wrong, the Hawks view this season as an anomaly. They find encouragement in recent examples in other sports of proven organizations that resisted wholesale changes and stayed the course with established winners. The New York Giants under Coach Tom Coughlin missed the playoffs in 2009 and 2010 and won the Super Bowl in 2011. The St. Louis Cardinals under Manager Tony La Russa missed the playoffs in 2010 and won the World Series in 2011. The San Francisco Giants under Manager Bruce Bochy won their last two World Series -- in 2012 and 2014 -- in seasons after they missed the playoffs.
"History earns the Hawks the benefit of the doubt."
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Frank Fitzpatrick of The Philadelphia Inquirer calls HBO's Paterno, a documentary on the late Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, a tragedy, not a documentary.
"Paterno arrives on the same weekend as Chappaquiddick, the theatrical film that skewers Ted Kennedy's image. Each film conveys and confirms the same lesson -- that flesh-and-blood heroes cannot long endure.
"Paterno is sometimes shown, via flashback, trying to reflect on some of what he'd learned about Jerry Sandusky over the years -- that he was a talented but annoying assistant, that he always seemed to be surrounded by children.
"But Paterno leaves us little but ambiguity. Was he complicit in evil or just unable to see it?
"In the end, the only certainty to take away from Barry Levinson's film is something that one of Batman's nemeses uttered in The Dark Knight, a popular entry in this new superhero genre:
" 'You either die a hero,' " Two-Face said, "or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
Sports on 04/10/2018