Blackhawks find mannequins 'creepy' but useful for practice

CHICAGO -- Nick Schmaltz had to do a double take.

The Chicago Blackhawks center glanced a few times at the two figures positioned near the bench at MB Ice Arena. He thought they were players.
They were mannequins, dressed in full Blackhawks practice uniforms. One had a helmet with No. 53 on it, the other No. 41.
"It's creepy when they're sitting on the wall there," Schmaltz said. "You catch yourself looking because you think it's an actual person. The first time I did, at least, so it's pretty funny."
The Blackhawks have started to use the mannequins at the end of their practices. They used one Friday, and added another, which wore sunglasses, on Monday. No one knows who put the glasses on the second mannequin, and neither mannequin has been named yet.

Asked whose idea this was, coach Joel Quenneville credited assistant Ulf Samuelsson.
So Samuelsson owns these two?
"No, I don't think so," Quenneville said. "These guys are independent."
Odd as they are, the mannequins are useful in helping defensemen get shots through from the point and in screening goaltenders.
"I thought it was good. The guys actually stay in front of the net," goaltender Anton Forsberg said with a laugh. "It's good to have a couple of those out there to stay all the time. You don't want to hit your buddy in front of the net. You feel like they're holding back a little bit [on shots], which I understand. But with those it's good to go. You can hammer them as hard as you want."
Schmaltz said the mannequins help the forwards too.
"I think it's … they're out there just for seeing passes through," he said. "A 2-on-1 or something and you get a pass through a guy's skate and pick it up, it's kind of tough to do. You don't really get to work on that unless you're in a game. So stuff like that, shooting through it. Defensemen I think it's good for, getting pucks through lanes and through that initial forward up there. It's a little different."
It's also a little unnerving.
"They kind of creep me out," forward Alex DeBrincat said. "I see them in the training room, sometimes I think it's a real person dressed up over there. It's good to work on. It's tough to read [passes] through the skates, and I'm sure it's tough to see around the player. But it takes the injury aspect out of someone just standing there for shots for the goalie. I've never seen anything like it, but I think it's a pretty good idea."
Quenneville didn't address the second mannequin. He had a decent assessment of the first mannequin's second "practice."
"I thought he picked it up a little more today," he said. "He went from just OK to OK."