Wisch List

Tuesday’s column from CBS Chicago …

(CBS) They share a stadium, a color scheme and a collective history that’s produced eight championships over the past 23 years, with a strong chance for a ninth next month.
But whose Chicago title run has been the best, the Blackhawks’, the Bulls’ or, well, the Bulls’?

That topic of discussion is one that I’ve seen pop up on social media over the past few weeks as the Blackhawks have again been scorching their way through the Stanley Cup playoffs, which continues with Chicago leading the L.A. Kings, 1-0, heading into Game 2 on Wednesday night at the United Center.

There’s no debate that the Blackhawks’ current five-year window – which already has included Stanley Cup championships in 2010 and 2013 – is the city’s best sports run since the Bulls’ “three-peats” of 1991-’93 and 1996-’98. But this week, I became curious about exactly how each of those championship runs stack up against each other. So, in an attempt to provide some context for the discussion, I crunched a few numbers and found some interesting items.

Continue reading at CBSChicago.com …

From the Saturday, May 17, editions of The Daily Journal (Kankakee, Ill.) and The Times (Ottawa, Ill.) …

The WISCH LIST

By Dave Wischnowsky

I have a confession to make: My viewpoint on Chicago’s newest tourist attraction is slanted.

But then again, it really couldn’t be any other way considering how Tilt! (yes, with an exclamation point), located high atop the John Hancock Center, leaves you looking down from a 30-degree angle through glass panels at the cityscape below.

And after that unique experience, here’s my slant on Tilt!: The view is great, the experience is OK, and the engineering is amazing.

On Monday, my wife and I popped by John Hancock Center (875 N. Michigan Ave.) to take the elevator ride up to the former John Hancock Observatory, which recently was rebranded as 360 Chicago and will soon be renovated to include new retail and audio-video elements.

The purpose of our trip was to experience Tilt!, which opened last weekend to great fanfare with camera crews from the BBC even stopping by. We wanted to see if the new sky-high attraction designed to compete with The Ledge at Willis Tower lived up to its billing.

A 26-foot-wide steel-and-glass structure on the 94th floor of the south side of John Hancock, Tilt! is operated by hydraulics that tip a section of wall outward, causing patrons to hover 1,000 feet over the city. A truly remarkable technological feat that leaves you wondering how they even built it, the attraction features several layers of reinforced, tempered, shatter-resistant glass panels and allows up to eight guest to step inside. Facing the windows while gripping metal bars on either side, you feel as if you’ve just stepped into the highest ride at Great America.

Three hydraulic actuators then extend to rotate the windows 20 degrees beyond the face of the building, allowing a truly unique view of Chestnut Street far below, Water Tower Place just across the way, and the actual historic Water Tower and Michigan Avenue sprawling beyond that.

Continue reading “My slant on Chicago’s new ‘Tilt!’ attraction”

Today’s column from CBS Chicago …

(CBS) The T-shirts lie.

Basketball isn’t life. Not even when your life is basketball.

And in light of the season-long suspension of Illini sophomore basketball player Darius Paul that was announced Tuesday and saw details emerge Wednesday, the University of Illinois is fortunate to have a hoops coach in John Groce who apparently understands that.

Because it’s refreshing to know that some schools are actually still in the teaching business in an era in which college athletes can sully a school’s reputation even while winning a Heisman Trophy (Florida State’s Jameis Winston) and get arrested for shoplifting, be suspended from a team, be sentenced to community service, complete community service and be reinstated to said team all in the span of just five days (again, Jameis Winston).

Even when it comes to their high-profile athletes.

Continue reading at CBSChicago.com …

Tuesday’s column from CBS Chicago …

(CBS) As the Big Ten heads into a big summer, it has a big problem.

Because when the league announced in November 2012 that it was expanding eastward, the thought was that in addition to providing entrance into lucrative new media markets, the inclusion of Rutgers and Maryland into the conference would also give Penn State some more natural rivals.

And in the case of Rutgers, it most certainly has – in terms of bad publicity.

Almost since the moment that Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany revealed that his conference would be growing to 14 schools, the Scarlet Knights have been leaving it with black eyes. So much so that Rutgers has managed to picked up the unwanted mantle of bad publicity that the Nittany Lions laid down after its messy housecleaning following the Jerry Sandusky scandal.

Last week, for example, Rutgers, doing New Jersey no favors as the state university, turned itself into an unfunny punch line for at least the sixth time in 14 months when the school either “miscommunicated” an invitation or a subsequent un-invitation – or both – to former football player-turned-inspirational figure Eric LeGrand to speak at graduation.

Continue reading at CBSChicago.com …

From the Saturday, May 10, editions of The Daily Journal (Kankakee, Ill.) and The Times (Ottawa, Ill.) …

The WISCH LIST

By Dave Wischnowsky

For encased meat aficionados in Chicagoland, these are truly the dog days.

Last week, Portillo’s announced that it’s seeking a buyer for its 38 fast casual restaurants throughout the city and suburbs selling hot dogs and the like. Then this week, Doug Sohn, namesake owner of Hot Doug’s – the wildly popular, encased-meats shop at 3324 N. California Ave. – stunned fans by revealing that he will close his doors for good on Oct. 3.

On the bright side, however, is that in Chicago you can’t keep a good dog down. And here are some other iconic hot dog shops that won’t be changing or closing anytime soon.

Redhot Ranch
3055 N. Ashland Ave.

On Wednesday, in honor of this month’s difficult-to-digest hot dog news, I popped in to this shop, which recently relocated from its longtime home on Western Avenue to just over a mile southwest of Wrigley Field.

I wasn’t disappointed.

Continue reading “Doggone It: Chicago still has great wiener options”

From the Saturday,  May 3, editions of The Daily Journal (Kankakee, Ill.) and The Times (Ottawa, Ill.) …

The WISCH LIST

By Dave Wischnowsky

They say that April showers bring May flowers. But this week, May started off the same way that April ended.

With showers.

However, on the sunny side of things, there are plenty of events warming up this month in Chicagoland, even if the weather isn’t warming up just yet. And here are some you should consider taking part in over the next few weeks.

Cinco de Mayo Parade & Festival
Sunday

Cinco de Mayo isn’t until Monday. But Chicago’s free weekend festivities honoring the Mexican army’s unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, are going strong all weekend.

They culminate on Sunday when at noon the city’s annual Cinco de Mayo parade will be held along Cermak Road on Chicago’s Southwest Side, beginning at Wood St. and ending at Kedzie Ave.

Continue reading “May Days: Warm up to Chicago springtime events”

My May 7 column from CBS Chicago …

(CBS) This, my friends, is not your father’s Big Ten.

“We’re thrilled to announce plans to host the Big Ten men’s basketball tournament in Washington, D.C.,” conference commissioner Jim Delany said Tuesday at a press conference in the nation’s capital, during which he unveiled a major geographical shift for his Midwestern-based league.

“We have a great amount of respect for basketball in this region of the country,” Delany went on to explain, “and are pleased that we were able to place this tournament at the Verizon Center at this first possible opportunity in March 2017.”

But are traditional Big Ten fans also pleased with the shake-up? And do they have the right to feel that by holding the conference’s marquee hoops event on the East Coast that Delany is also disrespecting their region of the country?

Well, Big Ten fans have every right to feel whatever they wish – and I know that many of them were less than thrilled to learn that the conference tournament, which has never been held more than a 2 1/2-hour drive from Champaign – will in two years be staged 11 hours due east.

However, I also don’t think that fans should overreact to the Big Ten giving its basketball tournament an East Coast tryout. After all, with the addition of Maryland and Rutgers to the conference roster on July 1, it only makes sense.

That is, it does as long as the Big Ten is sensible about it.

To continue reading, visit CBSChicago.com …

Friday’s column from CBS Chicago …

(CBS) Of the three Division-I football programs in Illinois, only one has an SEC opponent on its schedule this season – or for any upcoming seasons.

And it’s not either of the football programs that play in the Big Ten.

Rather, it’s Northern Illinois.

But that might not happen again for NIU if the SEC has its way (and it usually does), which is why the Huskies should go beyond simply pursuing big-time conference foes and actually start pursuing a big-time conference membership.

In light of college football’s dynamics tilting ever more toward the power conferences, it only makes sense.

Over the past four seasons, NIU has gone 46-10, won two MAC championships, won four division championships and gone to an Orange Bowl, cementing itself as one of the premier mid-major football programs in America. Over that time, the Huskies have also established themselves as not only the Land of Lincoln’s best pigskin program but also its most aggressive when it comes to scheduling non-conference heavyweights.

Continue reading at CBSChicago.com …

My April 30 column from CBS Chicago  …

(CBS) The Big Ten is in the running.

For a national championship? Well, I don’t know about that.

But come July 26, it’ll definitely be in the running in Chicago when Big Ten Network hosts its third annual Big 10K, which has grown from 5,000 runners wearing school colors in its first year to 13,000 last year, with the hopes of reaching 17,000 this season.

If only Illini football win totals rose so rapidly.

On Tuesday morning, I attended a kickoff event for the Big 10K at the BTN Studios during which network officials announced that Ohio State legend Archie Griffin – the only two-time winner of the Heisman Trophy – will serve as grand marshal and how this year’s race will wrap up in the heart of a Big Ten-themed tailgate party outside Soldier Field.

But before then, with spring football now a wrap at all of the Big Ten’s soon-to-be 14 schools, I wanted to take my own quick run through the conference and share some interesting tidbits dropped by the BTN this week, along with a few of my own thoughts about each of them.

Continue reading at CBSChicago.com …

From the Saturday, April 26, editions of The Daily Journal (Kankakee, Ill.) and The Times (Ottawa, Ill.) …

The WISCH LIST

By Dave Wischnowsky

Thanks to concert tickets and its iconic marquee, you may know the Chicago Theatre inside and out.

But do you really know the Chicago Theatre?

Odds are you aren’t familiar with the rich history, the fascinating quirks and the full beauty of one of Chicago’s most beloved and recognizable venues. However, thanks to a behind-the-scenes tour that allows you to lift the curtain on the State Street landmark, you can be.

At noon Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. on Saturdays, and 6 p.m. on select summer evenings, the Chicago Theatre (175 N. State St.) offers an hour-long Marquee Tour that takes you through every nook, cranny and sweeping staircase inside one of America’s last standing movie palaces from the 1920s.

Tickets, which can be purchased through thechicagotheatre.com, are $12 for adults and $10 for children 10 and under. And if you’re a fan of history, architecture, show business or simply the city of Chicago, the price of admission is definitely worth it.

Although, admittedly, you won’t get quite the bang for your buck that you would have 93 years ago when the theatre opened and charged only 25 cents if you entered before 1 p.m. For that price, you could sit anywhere and stay all day, enjoying the air-conditioning while getting your fill of main features along with short films, vaudeville acts and even music from a 50-piece orchestra during intermissions.

Continue reading “Lifting the curtain on the Chicago Theatre’s history”