Welcome back to Hawkey!!

Hawkey is back ladies and gentleman! The defending champion Chicago Blackhawks commenced their season at home versus the Washington Capitals. With upbeat music blaring through the speakers, the traditional banner-raising ceremony was thrilling to all hawks fans watching in the stadium, and at home. Reminiscing through the electrifying season made the fans even more excited for hockey to start again. From rookies and first goals, to record setting games, the season was exhilarating to say the least. But the Blackhawks don't want to focus on what happened last year. "I don't care anymore about what happened last year," Defenseman Duncan Keith told NHL.com. "We've moved on. We're happy to get rings and banners, that's the goal and we want to do it more. We haven't done anything this year. It starts Tuesday." And it sure did start Tuesday. Every player on the team was giving 110% during the game, even though the NHL made a few changes to the way the game is played. The nets were made shallower by four  inches to give the players more room to create plays behind the net. The goalie pads' size was reduced in order to create more scoring chances and opportunities. The last major change that affect all the players is, hybrid icing. In the past, whenever a puck was sent down the ice from behind the center ice red line, a referee would blow the whistle for icing once the retrieving team touched up the puck. If the shooting team touched up first, icing was waived off, and the game continued normally. Under hybrid icing, a referee will use their judgment to see how fast each skater is skating and willdetermine, "If both players were at the same place, and had a race on who will touch the puck first, (this player) would get there first". They will automatically blow the whistle if it is a clear situation in which the defending team will touch up. Thisrule change will is an attempt to decrease the amount of severe hits to the boards. Despite the rule changes, the players gave the fans everything they paid for. Racking up a total of 6 goals, the game showed just a silver lining of the Hawks' capability for this year. They also welcomed 5 new players to the roster. One of the players being Nikolai Khabibulin, or also known as "Khabi".Khabi used to play on the Blackhawks, but was traded to the Edmonton Oilers in the season of 2008-09, the season before the first cup was won. Another one of the players, Ben Smith, played as a stand-in last year. His name was not officially on the active roster, but was in the system. He played in one of the crucial games in the playoffs last year and got his name inscribed on the Stanley Cup because of it. The other players added to the roster are, Michael Kostka, 27, Jimmy Hayes, 23, and Joakim Nordstrom at 21. These players are not quite yet a Jonathan Toews or Patrick Kane, but with practice in the NHL, they could be. The players were chosen for both finesse and a higher caliber of play than most of the minor league players. This year the Blackhawks roster is filled to the brim with veterans, and only a few rookies. With this mixture of players, the Blackhawks have the odds in their favor. Literally. They are favored by many to win the cup for a second year in a row. To help prove the odds, the Blackhawks have already broken a few records. The opening ceremony broke TV cable records across the US.  An average number of 935,000 viewers watched the game, peaking at 1.045 million viewers throughout the night. The rating across the Chicagoland area was at a 7.5, breaking another TV cable record for Chicago. It was truly the most fantastic commencement ceremony to begin the NHL season. Let's hope for the best of what this season brings. Go Hawks!