Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

NHL Stanley Cup 2010 Champions: Chicago Blackhawks Blu-ray Movie Review

The Windy City Wins the Cup.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman August 4, 2010

This team has that 'something' that you need to win.

It was an event decades in the making. It was a drought a city could no longer stand. The Chicago Blackhawks, one of the National Hockey League's "original six" franchises, hadn't celebrated a Stanley Cup victory since 1961. Before the 2008-2009 season, the club hadn't reached the playoffs in six years, and while the Hawks lost to the eventual Stanley Cup runners-up and then-defending-champion Detroit Red Wings, they found their stride and established themselves as a team on the rise and on the verge of contending for Hockey's greatest prize. The franchise's fortunes began turning around with the 2006 draft when the Hawks selected Canadian center and future team captain Jonathan Toews with the third pick, a slotting secured following another lowly season, the club having accumulated a paltry 65 points during the 2005-2006 campaign. The Hawks followed up that season with a slightly-improved 71 points, their low position in the standings again affording them the opportunity to select another future superstar in the draft, winger Patrick Kane. With two future 30-goal scorers on their roster and a consistent rise in the standings, the club bolstered their chances for the 2009-2010 season by signing free agent winger Marián Hossa, former two-time Cup winner John Madden, and centerman Tomas Kopecky for a cup run that would end with the Blackhawks hoisting Lord Stanley's hardware on Philadelphia Flyers' ice following a grueling six-game series against the Eastern Conference's seventh-seeded Cinderella squad.

Game time.

No team ever advances through the grind of the Stanley Cup Playoffs without a few bumps in the road, and the Blackhawks' quest for the hardware would prove no different. The team ended the regular season with an impressive 112 points, only one behind the conference champion San Jose Sharks and third best in the NHL. The Hawks opened their playoff run against a gritty Nashville Predators squad that enjoyed a strong 100 point season but were still slotted seventh in a stacked Western Conference, a point total that fell but one short of the Eastern Conference's fourth-seeded and defending Cup champs, the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Preds would jump out to 1-0 and 2-1 series leads, but the Blackhawks surged to win three straight, including a 2-0 shutout victory in game four, to advance to round two against a Vancouver Canucks club with whom the Hawks had a recent history of bad blood. There was no love lost between the second- and third-seeded foes in round two, but the Hawks again prevailed in a tough six-game set with the team from Canada's Pacific coast after dropping the first tilt by a 5-1 throttling but winning four of the next five to move on to face the Conference point leaders and number one seeded Sharks, a club with a recent history of regular season success but post season failure. Though the San Jose squad had finally proven its playoff mettle and advanced to the Western Conference finals, they were no match for the surging Hawks as they regained their familiar playoff form and were dealt a humiliating bow out of the playoffs in four straight games. For the first time in what felt like ages, the Chicago Blackhawks were headed back to Hockey's Promised Land.

Saturday, May 29, 2010. It's a day Blackhawk fans will never forget, the day the team returned to the world's stage as a finalist for the Stanley Cup. Their opponent: the seventh-seeded Eastern Conference champion Philadelphia Flyers. For the Flyers, their road to the finals was one of the most unlikely in NHL history. The team soundly defeated the two-seeded Atlantic Division champion New Jersey Devils in a shocking four-games-to-one upset. Next up: another storied Original-Six franchise undergoing a rebirth of sorts, the Boston Bruins, a team, like the Hawks, suffering through a lengthy Cup drought. The Bruins took the Flyers to the brink by securing a commanding three-games-to-none lead in the best-of-seven series; their advancement to the Conference finals seemed but a formality, but the Flyers weren't going to go away so easily. They won game four. Bruins fans shrugged. They won game five. Flyers fans started paying attention again. They won game six. Bruins fans were shocked. They won game seven. Bruins fans found themselves on the wrong end of an historic collapse, and the Cinderella Flyers were on their way to face a team that also laid a legitimate claim to that glass slipper, the eighth-seeded Montreal Canadiens, a club that came from nowhere to advance through two rounds, ousting the defending Cup champs, the Pittsburgh Penguins, along the way. It was a series no hockey fan wanted to see come to an end; both teams had shocked the world and rocked the NHL landscape, but only one could emerge as the Eastern Conference's representative in the Cup Finals; the tough Flyers ousted a worn-down Canadiens team in five games for the honor of fighting the mighty and resurgent Hawks for the Cup. Games one and two of the Stanley Cup Finals went to the home team Hawks, giving Chicago strong footing going into Philadelphia. Still, they say there's no need to push the panic button until a team's lost on home ice, and the Flyers proved on their own ice that their ride to the Cup finals was no fluke, slaying the Hawks in games three and four, taking the series back to the Windy City for a now-pivotal fifth game. The Hawks found their stride on home ice, blasting the Flyers for seven goals and skating back to the City of Brotherly Love for a chance to hoist the Cup on enemy ice in game six. A late goal for the Flyers sent the tilt into overtime, but 2007 draftee Patrick Kane scored just over four minutes into the extra frame and secured the Blackhawks a long-overdue Stanley Cup title.

Warner Brothers' Chicago Blackhawks: NHL Stanley Cup 2010 Champions is, in short, a must-own title for Blackhawk fans, but that's like saying that oxygen is a necessary component in life. Though the disc is all-Hawks all the time, it's also a strongly-produced disc that general puck fans will want to relive over and over, too, so long as they don't wear orange sweaters with flying "P"s on the front. The program features a brief overview of the Hawks' regular season, beginning with the team's overseas trip to Finland to open the season in a two-game series against the Florida Panthers in Helsinki in which Chicago earned three of a possible four points and briefly covering pivotal regular-season match-ups leading to the playoffs. This is an energetic and exciting presentation that's heavy on puck action but also comprised of interviews with Blackhawk players, coaches, and broadcasters, as well as team executives, former skaters, and journalists. There's an unmistakable passion for the sport on display that all Hockey fans will appreciate, and the fast-paced action makes the 63-minute program fly by faster than a Patrick Kane slap shot that hits the back of the net. Whether on-ice action or behind-the-scenes access that takes fans into the team's practices and relaxation sessions on the Nintendo Wii, this feature will thrill and inform fans on the season that was and serves as a lasting memory of Chicago's long-awaited return trip to Hockey's promised land.

NHL Stanley Cup 2010 Champions: Chicago Blackhawks Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Chicago Blackhawks: NHL Stanley Cup 2010 Champions skates onto Blu-ray with a good looking 1080i transfer presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. It's not as spectacular as a big-budget movie, but Warner's Blu-ray presentation scores with bright and bold colors, nice details, and only a few bugaboos that are more a fault of the source material than they are a problem with the Blu-ray presentation. Fans will enjoy the nice colors seen across a spectrum of NHL jerseys, including the red Hawks sweaters and the orange Flyers jerseys. Details are solid, too; team logos and stitching in the mesh jerseys looks great in close-ups, while ice-level shots reveal plenty of lines, snow, and the nicks on the playing surface. Of course, there are some unavoidable issues with the lower-grade material; jagged edges, cross-coloration, aliasing, and blocking are all seen throughout the program, but most of the transfer looks fine. Flesh tones in interviews do feature a decidedly red push, but otherwise, this Blackhawks highlight video is befitting the material.

NHL Stanley Cup 2010 Champions: Chicago Blackhawks Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Chicago Blackhawks: NHL Stanley Cup 2010 Champions comes up a bit short-handed with but a DTS-HD MA 2.0 lossless soundtrack; fortunately, the lack of more channels isn't a game-changer. This is a nice, smooth presentation that's very basic and is made of nothing more, really, than music and dialogue. On-ice sound effects usually take a backseat to narration, but the spoken word comes across strongly and entrenched in the center channel with no audible bleed-over to the front left and right speakers. The music plays spaciously and with plenty of verve and vigor; it's a good, rocking presentation when need be and it never misses a beat. That's about all she wrote with this one. It gets the job done to a satisfactory level, and listeners shouldn't be at all disappointed with Warner's lossless offering.

NHL Stanley Cup 2010 Champions: Chicago Blackhawks Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Chicago Blackhawks: NHL Stanley Cup 2010 Champions contains a nice array of bonus materials, including "BD Connect," a BD-Live-style internet connectivity feature. The supplements begin with 2006 NHL Draft: Jonathan Toews (480p, 6:49) and 2007 NHL Draft: Patrick Kane (480p, 7:36), both pieces offering a look back at the days the Hawks selected two of the superstars that would lead them to the Stanley Cup. Behind the Scenes With the Stanley Cup (1080i, 4:03) features Phillip Pritchard, "The Keeper of the Stanley Cup," taking viewers behind-the-scenes of the process of preparing the Cup for the celebration. On-Ice Stanley Cup Celebration (1080i, 8:30) looks at the Cup presentation and the Hawks' skate with the Cup. Locker Room Stanley Cup Celebration (1080i, 3:39) briefly takes viewers to the post-game celebration, while Chicago Parade Celebration (1080i, 9:22) offers a glimpse of the festivities on the streets of Chicago following the team's victory and return home to the Windy City. Next is Phantom Camera Game 4 Highlights (1080i, 2:59). This is the best supplement on the disc; it offers a series of super slow motion game footage shots. Finally, The Missing Puck (1080i, 1:14) is a comical look back at a lighter moment from the Hawks-Preds series.

NHL Stanley Cup 2010 Champions: Chicago Blackhawks Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Chicago Blackhawks: NHL Stanley Cup 2010 Champions is a wonderful disc and a must-own for fans of the Chicago Blackhawks and the NHL. The disc hits all the highlights and delivers plenty of on- and off-ice action through the team's regular season and playoff run, built around game footage, behind-the-scenes access, and interviews with the team and others close to the sport. It runs at a fast-paced 63 minutes, but Warner's program covers all the necessary bases and is the next-best thing to the full games themselves. This Blu-ray sports a fair technical presentation and a nice assortment of extras. Recommended for Blackhawks fans and Hockey enthusiasts.