There’s certainly a lot of excitement around the home opener, which comes after the Blackhawks (2-3-0) began the season with a five-game road trip. That includes Bedard, who said this month that besides his League debut, he was looking forward to the game Saturday the most.
“The home opener will be unreal,” said Bedard, who has three points (goal, two assists) in five games. “Preseason games were nuts in there and you’re not even allowed to have the upper bowl sold and everything, and it was crazy. I’m really looking forward to that, a full United Center. That’ll be special.”
Troy Murray, who has worked on Chicago’s radio broadcasts since 2006-07, agreed that Bedard’s regular-season home debut will be much like Kane’s in 2007. He said the excitement level for Saturday’s game is “off the charts. Ticket sales for the home opener have proven that.
“Last year, I think it was close to a sellout, but this is an in-demand sellout. I think the anticipation and excitement is huge and this is for a new generation of fans as well as the fans that were here from the time when Kane and Toews were here. So, it’s the beginning of a new era, and I think the fans are excited to see what Bedard can bring.
“Again, there’s a lot of pressure on a guy who just turned 18 years of age. At the same time, he’s handled it extremely well and I think for the fans coming down to the United Center, they’re really going to have a high level of anticipation. The energy in the building is going to be something that, for those people going to see the opening game for the Blackhawks in this new stage, is going to be off the charts.”
Darren Pang returned to Chicago as a Blackhawks announcer in June after starting his broadcasting career here in the 1990s. For him, Bedard’s home debut brings to mind another special night he helped broadcast.
“I got to do the return of Mario Lemieux in Pittsburgh when he came back after a couple of years’ absence,” Pang said of the Hall of Famer coming out of retirement for the Pittsburgh Penguins against the Toronto Maple Leafs at Mellon Arena on Dec. 27, 2000.
“Going back to that first game at ‘The Igloo,’ when it happened, everywhere you turned, everywhere you walked, someone was talking about it. You could feel it in the air. Yes, that’s Mario returning after a [3 1/2-year] absence from the game, but still, that’s as close as I can get to a game like this tomorrow, on a personal broadcasting level.”
Bedard will certainly have the crowd on his side on Saturday. He and the Blackhawks will have something else for the first time this regular season: last change.
“It’s such a big part of the game,” Pang said. “Even a team as deep as Vegas, it’ll at least give [Chicago coach Luke Richardson] some options, be it in the offensive zone, on last change, that he can put [Bedard] in maybe a more favorable spot.
“He won’t have much of a break here because he's going to have [to face] Jack Eichel right away. And if not, he’s going to have some other great checking players as well, but I still believe that last change will give Luke some options that will be beneficial.”
Bedard is coming home. Blackhawks fans have had to wait nearly two weeks since the start of the season for this game, and the anticipation has built accordingly.
“I think for a lot of people it’ll probably be a little bit cathartic,” Punk said. “This is a new beginning in a lot of ways, obviously with Bedard. He’s like a beacon of hope.
“It feels there’s something new on every level, behind the scenes, on the ice, in the booth. There’s excitement and it breeds a lot of hope. I think the fans are going on Saturday knowing that this is the start and we’ve been here before, this is a rebuild, we can build around this exciting new, dynamic, generational talent, but it’s going to take time. They need our support as much as anything.”
