Dale Tallon Story...

I am not sure if everyone got the email circulating around about the Chicago Blackhawks. It is mostly true...


What a Great Story!!!

In the middle of a grueling six game road trip where a very young hockey team is away from home, the third game of the trip ends late on a cold Canadian Saturday night. This is the only break on the trip and the three days between games allow them the only break to get back home in their own beds for a couple of days before going back on the road. A scheduled commercial flight waits for them at Toronto 's International Airport for the short flight home. They could be home by midnight. This plane departs on schedule, but without a single member of the hockey team on board.

Earlier, back in the locker room, a vote was taken after the game and a unanimous decision is made by this young team to skip this flight and stay one more day. They make arrangements to check back in the hotel and on a frozen Sunday morning charter two buses that have no heat and begin a journey two hours straight north into a sparsely inhabited Canada , but where hockey is its passion.

They arrive at their destination to the surprise of the team’s general manager who is there attending his father’s wake. After a few emotional hours, this team boards the buses and head back for a two hour trip back to Toronto. On the way they ask the bus drivers to stop in a tiny Canadian town because they are hungry. To the shock of the patrons and workers at this small hockey town McDonald's, a professional team walks out of two rickety buses and into the restaurant, which just happens to have pictures of two members of this team on its wall. The patrons know every single one of these players by sight being fanatic fans of hockey in these parts. One can only imagine their amazement of the locals seeing and entire professional hockey team sit down and have a meal in their tiny little town in the middle of a hockey season.

After a while they board the buses and catch their same flight, 24 hours later, giving one day of their time to their general manager.
Have I made this up? Is this an excerpt from some fictional book?
No this a true story of the Chicago Blackhawks last Saturday night and they decided to attend Dale Tallon's father’s funeral. It’s amazing that such a good story can be found nowhere on the Internet, and not even mentioned in the Chicago papers. Had one of the Blackhawks got into a fight and punched some drunken loser in a Toronto bar it would be plastered all over papers and the television.

This being said, it’s hard to imagine any professional football, basketball or baseball team doing this, but the members of the Blackhawks claim any "hockey" team would have done this. This is one reason I continue to be a big hockey fan, and another reason I am excited about this Chicago team. I thought I would share this story as it appears to have gone unnoticed.

What a Great Hockey Story. Most of the players on the Team are Canadian kids. Born and raised with the values that we all sometimes forget.

Remember that we are not all destined to play hockey in the NHL but ,
we are all destined to take pride in our Canadian way of life and the way we are looked at for being respectful, polite, hardworking and most of all HOCKEY FANS and HOCKEY PARENTS.



There is some clarification required however (according to the Daily Herald)...



• The Hawks did not take "rickety" buses with no heat. They traveled in two warm motor coaches.

• They did not miss their commercial flight to Chicago after the game in Toronto. The Hawks charter everywhere.

• There was no formal team vote taken to attend the wake.

• The players were not mobbed at a McDonald's when they stopped to eat following the wake.



Nevertheless, it's a great story about a team that is growing more and more popular every day.

Here is the version from the Herald (sorry for the long thread but I think it is a nice story for once)...


The Hawks were scheduled to charter home following their Nov. 22 game against the Maple Leafs, but those plans changed during the course of the day when the team decided to attend the wake for Stanley Tallon, who had died Friday.

The Hawks hastily arranged a practice in Toronto the following morning, then made the two-hour bus trip to Gravenhurst, surprising the Tallon family at the funeral home. The GM gets emotional still talking about what it meant to see the players walk through the door.

"I thought to myself, 'What is this? Am I back in Chicago?' " Tallon said. "They started coming in and, wow. My mother, she gets the hockey package and watches all the games, it was so great for her. She was having such a hard time with it, we all were, but to see that, it was so heartwarming and it really took the edge off everything. That was the buzz the rest of the night.

"My dad was a hockey player and there were pictures of him when he was a young player, so the guys were looking at all the pictures and stuff. It was really cool.

"It makes you feel good about the character of our team and the homework we've done as a staff in drafting and getting these players. They're genuinely good kids. It makes you feel good about our young population, to make the decision they did."

The story has gotten perhaps its greatest response for what happened after the team departed the wake.

It was getting late when the buses departed for the 110-mile drive back to Toronto and the charter home, and the players were hungry.

"It's cottage country up there and it was around 9 at night and there was really nothing open," Hawks center Dave Bolland said.

Nothing but a McDonald's and a Harvey's, a Canadian hamburger chain. The players' bus went to McDonald's, at Patrick Kane's urging, while the coaches' bus hit the Harvey's. The players, still dressed in their travel suits, piled into McDonald's to eat.

There weren't a lot of people in the restaurant and the players said they barely were recognized as they ordered.

"I'd say there were about 10 people there, maybe," Sharp said. "I don't know if they were surprised and knew we were an NHL team, or if they were just surprised a bus load of guys came in in their suits."

What did happen was the players acted like kids when they saw a display of hockey cards that McDonald's was giving with the purchase of meals.

"It was cool when you walked in, there were all these hockey cards on the wall because it was a giveaway and if you bought a Happy Meal you got a set of cards," Sharp said. "So right away everyone was looking to see if they were in this set of cards. But it was just Kane and (Jonathan) Toews and maybe (Nikolai) Khabibulin. I think it was just the three of them."

The players filled the restaurant, eating their burgers and fries as people in the store finally began to sense this was the Chicago Blackhawks eating in their little town.

"It was pretty funny because most guys don't eat McDonald's," Bolland said. "The last time I had McDonald's was, I think, last summer."

"Not to sound like I'm a health nut or anything, but I haven't eaten at McDonald's in years," Sharp said. "It was funny to see guys like Dunc (Keith) and Ben Eager, guys that really, really take care of themselves and watch what they eat, sitting there eating chicken nuggets and Big Macs."

The players finished eating and headed back to Toronto for their charter, thinking nothing that they had done was special.

"It was a long road trip and an extra day at the end of it, but there were no complaints or second-guessing," Sharp said. "It was Dale's father, but if it was anyone else in the organization we would have made the same decision."

What a great story. I liked it better when they voted, but hey, it's still cool. That'll bring them all even closer.

Them are my blackhawks.

Cheers!

http://www.gmhockey.com/random-thoughts-f5/dale-tallon-story-t1205.htm

Thanks for posting this Hayden. Great story!!

Great story.

Should probably combine this one with the other.