The unparalleled futility and stagnation of Chicago sports — and signs of hope
- Mark Potash
- Apr 16, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 16, 2025
The Blackhawks finished the 2024-25 season with a flourish, beating the Senators 4-3 on 2023 first-round pick (No. 13 overall) Frank Nazar's goal off a nifty feed from 2024 first-round pick (No. 1 overall) Connor Bedard in overtime. It gave the Hawks three victories and 7-of-8 points in their final four games — a run fueled by the 19-year-old Bedard (three goals, seven points in the four games) and the 21-year-old Nazar (five goals, eight points in his last seven games).
After bottoming out last season following the demise of the Toews/Kane-era Stanley Cup run, the Hawks still were one of the worst teams in hockey and in franchise history, but with something more tangible to build on than prospects in the minors and future draft picks – Bedard, Nazar, 19-year-old defenseman Artyom Levshunov, 20-year-old defenseman Sam Rinzel, 22-year-old defenseman Wyatt Kaiser among them. Goaltender Spencer Knight, acquired in the trade for Seth Jones, looked like a potential foundation piece even without impressive overall numbers with the Hawks. It still seems like Bedard needs his Kane or Toews, but a few months ago he didn't even have his Frank Nazar. That's progress.
The Blackhawks still are 72-148-24 over the past three seasons — the worst points percentage (.348) over a three-year span since 1954-57 (Bobby Hull showed up the next season and the rest is history). But however modestly, their arrow is pointing up more than the rebuilds began in the post-Quenneville era.
That's not only the state of the Blackhawks, but the state of Chicago sports right now. We're in the throes of the worst run in town since the inception of the Bulls in 1966 gave Chicago five major professional sports teams. The last playoff game for any of them was April 27, 2022, when the Bulls were eliminated by the Bucks in Game 5 in Milwaukee in the first round of the NBA playoffs. That drought will be more than three years if the Bulls don't advance from the play-in tournament this week. Yikes!
The Bulls have been the epitome of spinning their wheels in NBA hell the past three season — finishing 10th, ninth and ninth in the Eastern Conference. But a 15-5 finishing kick not only has them in position to make the playoffs, but with arguably their best post-Thibs foundation to start next season in Coby White, rookie Matas Buzelis and newcomer Josh Giddey.
The Bears are in an historically poor three-year run (15-36, .294) after going 5-12 last season. But the Ben Johnson-Caleb Williams pairing arguably gives them a better foundation under a first-year head coach since Mike Ditka.
The Cubs are coming off back-to-back 83-79 seasons and haven't made the playoffs since 2020 — and haven't made the playoffs in a full season since 2018. But they're 12-9 and in first place in the NL Central, with the expectation among many observers — inside and outside of Chicago — that they'll stay there in a weakened division.
Only the White Sox don't fit the mired-in-a-little-difficulty/arrow-pointing-up narrative. They've got the first part down pat — they're coming off back-to-back seasons of 61-101 and 41-121. And though they aren't as likely to lose as many games they have a chance to win as they did — almost comically — last year, their 2025 roster and lineup are so substandard that it likely will take some unexpected player development to avoid losing 100 games again this year. At 4-12, they're on a pace to finish 41-121 again.
So with the Bulls being eliminated from playoff contention with an ugly 109-90 loss to the Heat on Wednesday night at the United Center, the longest playoff drought in modern Chicago sports history (1966 to present) continues — 1,005 consecutive days and counting. And even if the Cubs break that streak — or the Bears — Chicago has a lot of catching up to do to reverse an almost unimaginable trend of failure in our town.
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WHITE SOX
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