Lacking Bluster: Why Doesn’t Boston Hate Chicago?

Three and a half years ago, when the Boston Bruins beat the Vancouver Canucks for their first Stanley Cup championship in 39 years, it was the culmination of an intense, seven-game series that had devolved from something of an angst bred from unfamiliarity, to unmitigated hatred between the two teams and their fan bases.

Take your pick as to which moment spurred on the NHL’s newest, most infrequent rivalry; Alex Burrows biting Patrice Bergeron. Nathan Rome flattening Nathan Horton. Roberto Luongo calling out Tim Thomas. Mix in the boisterous Alain Vigneault, the creepy Sedin twins, and a tongue-wagging, pandering Vancouver media corps, and there was suddenly an antagonism born out of nothing, another city that Boston sports fans can point to with derision, but more importantly, the upper hand.

Two years later, the Bruins returned to the Stanley Cup final, this time against the Chicago Blackhawks, leaving fans searching for that familiar angle of dislike for the opponent, a reason to make winning more delicious than the victory itself.

They found nothing.

Not even the sight of the Blackhawks parading on the Garden ice after winning Game 6 sparked any level of the discontent Boston sports fans have reserved for the likes of the Yankees, Canadiens, Jets, and Lakers. As Bostonians, we loathe teams from New York, Montreal, and Los Angeles for being our antitheses. We love to mock rivals from Tampa Bay, Miami, and Buffalo for a variety of reasons, everything from the questionable dedication of their fan bases, to the bumbling maneuvers in their front offices.

Sometimes it takes a singular player from a past rivalry to spark something new someplace else. See Peyton Manning in Denver. LeBron – and Ray Allen – with the Heat. Bart Scott…well, wherever Bart Scott went.

But, Chicago?

Almost 30 years after the Bears embarrassed the Patriots in the Super Bowl and set the franchise back a decade, there’s no ill will. There remains nothing but respect for Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, and Corey Crawford of the still-dangerous Stanley Cup champs of 2013. Red Sox fans may no longer identify with the plight of the lovable loser Cubs, but they can empathize with them, as can their imported general manager. And let’s not forget, the Bulls’ dynasty in the NBA was was handed down from (yes, the Lakers too), the Boston Celtics, who watched their title hopes end just as Michael Jordan emerged into his prime.

Why exactly don’t we hate Chicago the way we do everybody else? Or even just a little?

“I can’t think of any reasons other than teams from the cities aren’t in the same division,” said Steve Rosenbloom, a sports columnist for the Chicago Tribune. “That’s usually where the hate begins.”

No, that might be the easiest way to explain it, and for sure, that’s the main reason why Red Sox-Yankees, Bruins-Canadiens, Dodgers-Giants, Packers-Bears, etc. remain our nation’s greatest, most historical rivalries. But it’s not as simple as that when it comes to determining why there is a lack of antagonism with Chicago. After all, it took a span of about 24 hours for a new level of discord to arise between the Bruins and Canucks, who don’t even play in the same conference, never mind the same division.

There are no set parameters for a rivalry. The best are born organically, not geographically planned in a league boardroom.

So, with all the sports history that exists between New England and Chicago, shouldn’t there be even a little bit of discord? Instead, because the two cities are so similar in attitude, what we get is a mutual respect that we’re not used to when it comes to our professional sporting interests.

It’s an appreciation for Chicago that, frankly, leaves Boston fans feeling a little lost.

Nothing But Net

By the time McDonald’s aired its famous commercial featuring Larry Bird and Michael Jordan during the Super Bowl in 1993, Bird was already a season removed from his final round with the Celtics while Jordan was on his way to a third-straight NBA title with the Bulls.

When Bird was in his prime with Boston, Jordan was a young superstar on the rise, a raw, sensational talent with a lacking supporting cast. Twice Jordan’s Bulls faced the Celtics in the playoffs (1985-’86 and ’86–’87), and were swept in both instances out of the first round. The Celtics won the title in ’86, the Lakers in ’87, but both teams, as well as the Detroit Pistons understood their windows were closing, thanks to the oncoming steam train that Jordan led in Chicago. As Jordan and the Bulls were making their run at a three-peat, the Celtics lost their first-round playoff matchup against the Hornets, then would miss the postseason altogether for seven of the next eight seasons.

Instead, it was the Pistons, who, indeed, became the Bulls’ most-feared rivals in the Eastern Conference at the tail end of the 80’s, when the Celtics aged and eventually sputtered out at the dawn of a new decade. Boston fans watched the Bulls’ dynasty from afar in spite, but hardly with the passionate hatred a true rivalry can breed.

It was, however, the cities’ best shot at a historic rivalry, missed by only the few years it took the Bulls to build around their superstar. The Celtics and Bulls wouldn’t meet again in the postseason until 2009, and while it was a memorable seven-game series eked out by Boston, the Bulls since then have only made it as far as the conference finals. The Celtics lost to the Lakers in the finals the following year. Boston is, once again, irrelevant in the NBA landscape, while the Bulls and head coach Tom Thibodeau hold their breath and pray for the health of Derrick Rose, their star point guard who hasn’t played a full season in three years.

Two decades after being forced to look in on the rest of the league from the outside, Celtics fans are in the same boat once again, rebuilding through the lottery, and fishing around for what they can get in return for the dynamic and moody Rajon Rondo. But this time, Celtics fans don’t watch the Bulls in contempt, rather some level of admiration thanks to Thibodeau’s presence in Chicago. A native of New Britain, Conn. and a Salem State graduate, Thibodeau was the defensive whiz and associate head coach when the resurgent Celtics of 2007-08 won the NBA title behind Kevin Garnett, Allen, and Paul Pierce. Thibodeau has led the Bulls to a pair of first-place finishes in the Central Division, and despite the absence of Rose, has landed Chicago in the playoffs each of the last two years.

Of course, it’s not the only Chicago sports franchise in which Boston fans tend to have a keen interest. Theo Epstein, former Red Sox general manager, who helped lead the team to its first World Series title in 86 years (you might have heard?) hasn’t exactly found the same success with the hapless Cubs quite yet as their president of baseball operations.

Under Epstein’s tutelage, the Cubs have finished last in the NL Central for three straight seasons, though a solid nucleus of young players may be ready to compete in 2015, particularly if the team makes a run at free agent pitcher Jon Lester, which would add another Boston component to the mix, as well as the potential Epstein brings in manager Joe Maddon, the former Rays manager who opted out of his contract with Tampa Bay on Friday, and notably impressed Epstein and the Red Sox brass when he interviewed for the Boston managerial opening that eventually went to Terry Francona in 2004.

For decades, it was the Cubs who were not only the most identifiable team for Red Sox to sympathize with, but in many ways their National League mirror image from a hard-luck, “curse” perspective. Boston had the Babe. Chicago has, for better or worse, the Billy Goat. But fairy tales aside, these are two teams that haven’t met in the World Series since 1918, yet still have still managed to share a brotherly connection of futility. Just when it seemed it might all come to a head 11 years ago, Aaron Boone delivered Boston its most devastating playoff loss since 1986. The same October, Bartman intervened at Wrigley Field. The fantasy of an epic Red Sox-Cubs World Series was suddenly replaced by Yankees-Marlins.

Since then, the Red Sox have won three World Series. The Cubs have made the playoffs twice. They haven’t won a postseason game since Game 4 of the 2003 NLCS, an 0-9 stretch.

But the synergy between the two franchises remains, partly in thanks to the fact that both teams play in two of the most iconic – and oldest – ballparks in the major leagues. The “lovable losers” tag that plagued both teams now only applies to one, though there is a certain perverse sense in realizing that Bill Buckner, Red Sox first baseman of Game 6 lore, had his best years with the Cubs before he went down in infamy with Mookie Wilson.

If anything though, it is the team across town that can lay claim to any modern-day one-upping of Boston, knocking off the defending World Champs in the 2005 ALDS, highlighted by Tony “Gaffe”-anino and one of the worst starts in recent Red Sox postseason memory from the arm of Matt Clement. The White Sox went on to win the World Series that year, and have been an afterthought in Chicago since, never mind the minds of baseball fans across the country.

In fact, the great connections between the two cities don’t go much further than that.

Boston gave Chicago Carlton Fisk, Nomar Garciaparra, Kevin Youkilis, and even Bobby Orr. Chicago has given Boston Phil Esposito, Andre Dawson, Jake Peavy, and Rosevelt Colvin. It’s very rare that any player movement resulted in bad feelings that might spark animosity between former and new job.

We feel for the Cubs. We’re interested in the Bulls, and we’re even fascinated with the 3-4 Bears, in Foxborough this weekend to take on the 5-2 Patriots. The Bears are a team bursting with talent and a quarterback in Jay Cutler who should be much better based on the sum of his parts. But their history with the Patriots boils down to an embarrassing loss in New Orleans and Tom Brady’s memorable juke on Brian Urlacher. That’s all.

We can’t even hate the Blackhawks, who delivered the most crushing playoff blow in Boston sports this decade.

How could we possibly?

Hiya, Neighbor

I mean, who does that?

That’s the full-page ad that the Chicago Blackhawks organization placed in the Boston Globe the same week they ousted the Bruins in a heartbreaking, late comeback in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final. It thanked the people of Boston and the Bruins for the hospitality and sportsmanship the city and team showed during the 2013 series.

By comparison, Vancouver decided to try and burn their city down in losing to the Bruins in 2011. There would be no letter of “respect” sent to British Columbia by way of the Hub.

The Stanley Cup chase that spring, of course, came in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings in April. At the tail end of that grueling week, the Chicago Tribune sent dozens of Pizzeria Regina pizzas to the newsroom of the Globe and Boston.com with a note reading, in part, “We can’t buy you lost sleep, so at least let us pick up lunch.’’

If the ways that Boston and Chicago both tend to look on their rich sporting history with fondness are similar in nature, here’s where the cities differ. While New Englanders tend to revel in a dubious skepticism, Chicagoans can have a Midwestern charm with attitude, the latter of which is lacking in say, St. Louis Cardinals fans.

They revel in suffering with the Cubs and Cutler, while here, our miserable attitudes come with the demand for improvement.

Maybe there’s some part of us that can’t hate Chicago because, in some ways, they are who we want to be. New York? Too obnoxious. Miami? Too glitzy. Montreal? Absolument pas. Los Angeles? Too foreign in every way.

In Chicago, Boston sees a city that respects its sports history in the same vein as we do in New England. That mutual admiration has made it difficult to create any semblance of hate over the years. The same can’t be said when the Bruins travel to Montreal, the Red Sox hit the Bronx, or the Patriots play in the Meadowlands, destinations of scum and villainy as far as New Englanders are concerned. And we don’t exactly shine with our brightest moments when faced with adversity in those environments.

Cubs and Red Sox fans are seen as among the worst in sports depending which circle you’ve ventured into. The Bulls and Celtics may never meet in an Eastern Conference Finals series, and if the Blackhawks are waiting for the Bruins once again in June, it will surely be another memorable series.

But we can’t hate them.

Chicago simply makes us better sports fans.