Explaining the Greatness of Chris Chelios to the Younger Generation of Chicago Blackhawks Fans

For someone like me, who is a Xennial (or begrudgingly, an elder Millennial), Chelios was probably one of your favorite Hawks players growing up.

For those who were already adults in the 1990s, Chelios was part of a collection of talent that kept the winning ways of the previous decade going until owner Bill Wirtz decided to not pay to keep them together.

Either way, we loved Chelios.

He was a superstar. The man had a cameo in Mighty Ducks 2. The guy hung out with Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky.

More importantly, he was THE superstar on a Blackhawks team that had a collection of them during the 1990s. The Hawks had Ed Belfour, Jeremy Roenick, and eventually Tony Amonte. It was Chelios who always had the biggest spotlight.

Maybe it was because he was Chicago-born and bred. I remember catching a Cubs-White Sox game at Wrigley Field in 2003 and Chelios sang "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the seventh-inning stretch. Sox and Cubs fans alike were going crazy for him even though he was with the Red Wings. A guy behind me even shouted that out and was quickly shunned by the rest of the section.

You may have even cried when Mario Lemieux, Jaromír Jágr, and the rest of the Pittsburgh Penguins denied him a chance to win the Stanley Cup for his hometown team in 1992. You may have started to become indifferent to the Hawks the moment he was traded to Detroit because owner Bill Wirtz was not going to pay him the money he deserved on his next contract. You saw Steve Larmer, Roenick, and Belfour all get traded because of Wirtz's frugalness, and then out went Chelios.

Then making it worse, he won Stanley Cups with "Detroit Sucks!" That easily helped the fan base become apathetic towards the Hawks until Bill's death.

There is a quick way to catch up on finding out just how amazing Chelios was.

If you never got to see Chelios play during his Hawks tenure (at the time, unless you had tickets to a home game, you saw him play on the road because Hawks home games were not on television unless it was a rare national TV home game), then you can always check out these highlight packages of the Hall of Fame defenseman...

Then you need to read CHGO's Chicago Blackhawks Podcast Host and beat writer Jay Zawaski's fantastic piece on Chelios' legacy.

Then finish up finding out about Chelios' greatness with the Athletic's Scott Powers and Mark Lazerus' collection of stories from Chris' teammates, family, and friends about what it was like to play with, against, or hang out with one of the greatest defensemen of all time.

Once you have done all that, hopefully, you have a true appreciation of what Chelios meant to the Blackhawks. For those that already knew, hopefully, you had a fond trip down memory lane.