Hawks Junk…

An obvious byproduct of your favorite NHL team winning a championship is all of the “puck junk” that suddenly becomes available for sale. This is neither good nor bad to me. Most of this stuff I won’t buy, but it still makes me happy to see ‘Hawks-related merch in July.

Recently, Sports Illustrated–or as I like to call it, College Basketball Illustrated–did their annual hockey cover. I bought this because I do not ever recall a Blackhawks player being on the cover in  the past 30 years.

Of course, every print publication (remember those???) was out in full force, with their “Commemorative Edition” Blackhawks retrospectives. USA Today sold one, as did SI, and a few other mags / papers. Fighting the urge to buy every single one of them, I settled on HawkeyTown, put out by the Chicago Tribune.

For those of you who like hockey and toy trains–well, you are in luck! Some company really thought that this  HO-scale Blackhawks Electronic Train Set was a good idea. I guess if you like toy trains, you are old enough to remember real trains, before the oil and automotive industries pretty much ran the railroad industry into the ground.

Speaking of mass transit, these signs have been spotted on buses around Chicago. I almost took one, but then figured that the sign would benefit more where people could see it–you know, in case they weren’t aware of the Blackhawks’ Stanley Cup victory. Of course, if I see another one, it might end up in “the collection.”

Besides, it isn’t like you can’t just go to a store and buy a Blackhawks’ sign…

…or two, or three. Banners, pennants, flags, FatHeads, window decals, stickers…just about anything you could think of to cover up that hole in the wall your roommate made in a drunken stupor.

The Patrick Kane pennants were “Limited Edition” of 5,000. From the looks of it, they made 4, 996 too many of them.

The Coca-Cola company made these commemorative cans, congratulating the ‘Hawks on their Cup win. In my own defense, my Mom bought me this six pack of soda (honest). One of them will end up on my shelf next to a sealed, Blackhawks-themed can of Old Style Beer.

And then, of course, there are t-shirts. Lost of them. Most have pretty crappy designs.This one is just funny, though it only came in kid sizes. It has cartoon versions of Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Antti Niemi. Whoa, hold on there. Maybe they should have re-signed Niemi before putting him on a t-shirt. With the Blackhawks, matching the offer sheet tendered to Nicklas Hjalmersson, Niemi might be the next salary cap casualty.