As the Blackhawks reached hockey’s mountaintop in 2010, winning their first Stanley Cup since 1961, the Cubs were beginning to decline. They went 75-87 that season, Year 1 of a five-year rebuild.
You’ll have to forgive then-Cubs ace Ryan Dempster, an avid hockey fan, for how he felt watching the Blackhawks run through the 2010 playoffs while his own club struggled.
“I think at times, I was more excited for what they were doing out on the ice than what we were doing on the baseball field,” Dempster told NBC Sports Chicago’s David Kaplan last week. “Especially in 2010 and watching them go through all that was incredible.