The Blackhawks are making a bad decision with Eddie Olczyk

The Chicago Blackhawks have been making some bad decisions over the years. The latest one is involving the broadcast booth as Eddie Olczyk is not going to be the color commentator going forward. This is someone who has become a legend in town from this job.

The Blackhawks already lost their play-by-play man in Pat Foley as he retired after the 2021-22 season. Now, the broadcast will be completely new as Olczyk is gone too. This is very bad news for the Hawks for a variety of reasons.

For one, he probably didn’t want to be done with this job. He does color for the nationally broadcasted NHL games on the Turner Networks and will continue to do so. He is one of the best in the game at this job if not the number one best.

In fact, it can be argued that he is the best in all of the American pro sports. Letting a guy like that go better have a really good reason but you know it doesn’t because of what has happened with this team over the last year or two.

The Chicago Blackhawks are making a huge mistake with their broadcast booth.

The Blackhawks are going to be a pathetically bad team. That might sound bad but it is by design as they are clearly rebuilding. Landing one of the top prospects in the 2023 NHL Draft is clearly very important to them and they are going to have a chance to do so.

However, now there is not much reason for the casual fan to tune into games during the regular season. They are going to be bad and the broadcast that everyone once loved is completely gone. It is a shame to see because Chicago can be a hockey powerhouse but the Blackhawks don’t care.

It is basically just Patrick Kane left in terms of incredibly exciting things going on with this team. He has one year left on his deal and could be traded at any moment so even that isn’t a guarantee for the whole season.

It might be worth it one day if Kyle Davidson executes the rebuild the right way but it is going to be a long time. It is just a shame that Eddie O isn’t going to be there along for the ride. It will be fun to enjoy his next adventure with the Seattle Kraken organization but it still is less than ideal for the hometown team.