Call me a party pooper.

But after watching the Blackhawks come out and play a mostly uninspired sixty minutes of losing hockey to the Phoenix Coyotes, I have to question the wisdom of the team deciding to make the current Phoenix-Colorado road trip a "Dad's Trip."

Listen, I'm a Dad. I love spending time with my sons (and my daughter!). I also don't bring them to important client meetings. And although it might appear otherwise at times, I don't let them write the blog.

These are highly paid professional athletes and these are important games. And if the Hawks come out and play tonight versus the Avalanche like they did last night, they will have lost four important points, and find themselves sinking deeper into the Western Conference standings. Maybe I'm going out on a limb here, but I suspect, for the vast majority of Hawk fans, it is about winning hockey games. Not feel good moments off the ice.

It's not that effort wasn't there for most of the night. It was for the most part. But cohesion and crispness were not.

Kris Versteeg generated turnovers, and scored a lucky-ish goal (off a nice set-up by Patrick Kane). But he also made 3-4 mystifyingly bad decisions in other situations, one that helped lead to a Phoenix goal.

Cristobal Huet let in a soft goal. Had the Hawks lost 1-0, or even 2-1, that would be more of an issue.

The power play was not good. Again. Joel Quenneville continues to struggle to find players who can set the PP up and lead it. But he has two defensemen who are being paid a combined $10+ million this year to do just that.

Dustin Byfuglien seemed tentative at times, especially early in the game.

Kane and Pat Sharp had breakaways that both shot over the top of the net.

I think we're seeing why Anaheim waived Andrew Ebbett.

Is the presence of the dads, with golf and dinner outings, photo ops and interviews galore, the reason the Hawks looked weak last night, especially earlier on in the game? We can't say for sure.

But is it that hard to connect the dots between an obvious distraction from hockey on a road trip and a flat performance?

Hey, if you want to give the guys a break from hockey in season for psychological reasons, great. But the season is 13 games old. And that's what, for most of these guys, the Olympic break will be.

Let me phrase this another way; who do you think thought this trip up? Joel Quenneville and the coaching staff? Or John McDonough, Jay Blunk and the marketing staff? I think we all know who provided the pictures and story line to CSN for their intermission feature on the trip.

Taking nothing away from the Coyotes. They are vastly improved team. And Ilya Bryzgalov was sharp as a tack last night.

But, sorry to be a curmudgeon, this trip was a really bad idea from the standpoint of winning road hockey games at a critical juncture of the schedule.

Anecdotally, I am hearing from season ticket holders that their seats are not in nearly as high demand as they were at this time last year. Maybe that's due to the bad economy (probably somewhat is).

Maybe it's due to something else. And that's where on-ice performance meets marketing.

RANDOM SHOTS:

Bryan Bickell was called up from Rockford today. Bickell's a big kid who can skate, shoot and hit. And he's been good at Rockford thus far this year.

I believe Antti Niemi is in goal for the Hawks tonight. Nice opportunity for a bounce back. His last outing was not great.

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