Winning A Chicago Championship At Home: A Rare Event

While watching the Blackhawks celebrate their Stanley Cup championship Monday night in front of a raucous home crowd at the United Center, and again after the Cup was brought in celebration Tuesday night to Wrigley Field, I was struck by just how rare that occasion was -- that is, a Chicago team winning a title in Chicago.

It was noted, often, before Monday's game that the Blackhawks hadn't won at home since 1938. The Hawks also won at the old Chicago Stadium in 1934. But that's 77 years without a Stanley Cup being hoisted by the Hawks in Chicago.

But other Chicago teams haven't won titles that often at home, either. Of the Bulls' six championships, just half (1992 vs. Portland, 1996 vs. Seattle and 1997 vs. Utah) were won in front of a home crowd.

NFL teams don't win championships at their home stadium anymore due to the neutral-site Super Bowl, but in the pre-SB age, the Bears won championship games at home four times: 1933, 1941, 1943 and 1963.

And there has been just one World Series won by a Chicago team in Chicago, and that took an all-Chicago Series to do it: the White Sox defeating the Cubs in 1906. And even then, the Sox won at West Side Grounds, the Cubs' then-home park. Both of the Cubs' Series titles were won in Detroit, and the White Sox won in New York in 1917 and Houston in 2005.

With the Cubs being rained out Monday night, Wrigleyville was all Blackhawks, with massive crowds filling the streets outside Wrigley Field, as you see in the photo at the top of this post.

The Cubs are a much-improved team this year and I think we can all see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, just as the Blackhawks did in the couple of years before this core group won the Cup for their first time in 2010. What would it be like to have the Cubs win a World Series title at Wrigley Field? How would it feel? How would you feel, whether you'd be lucky enough to be inside Wrigley on that night, or outside on the street, or watching at home?

Congratulations to the Blackhawks. Our turn is coming. Can't you feel it?