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

The Chicago Blackhawks are retiring Chris Chelios' No. 7 before the team takes on the Detroit Red Wings.

It is fitting to send his number to the United Center rafters considering he spent a combined 19 of his 26 NHL seasons with the Hawks and the Red Wings.

He won his Stanley Cups with Montreal and Detroit. He even won the Norris Trophy with the Canadiens, but it was with the Blackhawks where he won two more and made the majority of his 11 All-Star Game appearances.

For the younger part of the Millennial generation and everyone in Generation Z and Alpha, you never got a chance to see Chelios be a dominant blue-line force for the Chicago Blackhawks.

Also, this applies to anyone from the Silent Generation to Generation X who jumped on the Hawks' bandwagon in 2010 (there is nothing wrong with that).

In that case, you might be more excited for Patrick Kane's return to the United Center for the first time since he was traded at last year's deadline. You see Chelios had the same star power as Kane only it was three decades ago.

Sure, you may have heard your grandparents, parents, or older siblings recount tales of him going after the top stars of the 1990s on a nightly basis or brilliantly leading an offensive rush, but you never really got to see him play.

Well, for some you saw him win two Stanley Cups with the Red Wings. Think about it Connor Bedard was born six years after Chicago traded Chelios to Detroit.

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.