Brian39
Registered User
- Apr 24, 2014
- 7,102
- 13,001
One thing we have going for us is that a lot of Hawks fans have checked out already. The casual fans brought in from the Cup runs have started to disappear since they haven't won a playoff round since 2015, got swept in 2017 and missed the playoffs for 2 straight years. Every single successful franchise has a good number of fans that are only there because that team is winning and it has been long enough since the Hawks were winning that those fans are gone. Additionally, more invested fans who still care about the Hawks are less engaged than in years past. They might still be watching most the games, but they are less likely to be paying enough attention to vote for all star ballots every day. Finally, there is a larger-than-ever percentage of their die hard fan base that has started to resent the Toews contract. Fair or not, fans in a cap world tie their emotions about a player to his contract and a guy on pace for 60 points gets a lot less love from fans when he makes $10.5M instead of $5M. All of that combined means that the Chicago market isn't coming out in droves to stuff the ballot box for Toews. On top of that, he has had a reputation as overrated by a lot of fans around the NHL ever since he got that contract. Canadian fans still love him, but I don't think a ton of US fans outside the Hawks fanbase are eager to see him in another all star game.
He might still win the vote because even with all of those factors Chicago is just a very large market and his name is still gold in Canada. But there are enough factors that I think he is less likely to get in than Perron or Makar.
