Chicago Blackhawks: Team was aware of 2010 sexual assaultJason Parinion October 26, 2021 at 8:30 pm

Just four months after the Chicago Blackhawks were named in numerous lawsuits filed by a former player who says he was sexually assaulted by video coach Brad Aldrich in 2010, the team released a full report on Tuesday detailing what unfolded during the team’s Stanley Cup championship run 10 years ago. Shortly after the allegations […] Chicago Blackhawks: Team was aware of 2010 sexual assault – Da Windy City – Da Windy City – A Chicago Sports Site – Bears, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, Fighting Illini & MoreRead More

Chicago Blackhawks: Team was aware of 2010 sexual assaultJason Parinion October 26, 2021 at 8:30 pm Read More »

Our Devil Dogs Did It. The Geese Have Flown.on October 26, 2021 at 7:12 pm

Getting More From Les

Our Devil Dogs Did It. The Geese Have Flown.

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Our Devil Dogs Did It. The Geese Have Flown.on October 26, 2021 at 7:12 pm Read More »

Fannie, The Music and Life Of Fannie Lou Hameron October 26, 2021 at 8:30 pm

Let’s Play

Fannie, The Music and Life Of Fannie Lou Hamer

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Fannie, The Music and Life Of Fannie Lou Hameron October 26, 2021 at 8:30 pm Read More »

Blackhawks sexual assault scandal: Stan Bowman parts ways with teamBen Popeon October 26, 2021 at 6:59 pm

Stan Bowman is no longer the general manager of the Blackhawks. | Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

Major organizational changes are coming to the Hawks as part of the fallout from the team’s mishandling of 2010 sexual assault allegations.

The Chicago Blackhawks will be searching for new leadership after the team parted ways with its top two hockey executives Tuesday as part of the fallout from the scandal over the team’s handling of 2010 sexual assault allegations against former coach Bradley Aldrich.

Stan Bowman’s 12-year reign as the Blackhawks’ general manager and hockey operations president is over. Technically, he resigned from his position. Bowman’s right hand man, Al MacIsaac, was also forced out.

Their departures headline a major organizational overhaul after an independent investigation conducted by the Chicago law firm Jenner & Block, which said it interviewed 139 witnesses over the past four months.

Read our ongoing coverage of the allegations against Aldrich and the team’s handling of them below.

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Blackhawks sexual assault scandal: Stan Bowman parts ways with teamBen Popeon October 26, 2021 at 6:59 pm Read More »

‘Dune: Part II’ planned for 2023 — and not on HBO MaxJake Coyle | AP Film Writeron October 26, 2021 at 7:00 pm

Zendaya (pictured in “Dune”) is expected to be more prominent in the film’s sequel. | Warner Bros.

The sequel to Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi hit will be released only in theaters, studio says

“Dune” isn’t done.

Legendary Entertainment announced Tuesday that Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune,” which adapts the first half of Frank Herbert’s 1965 science-fiction epic, will get a sequel. Whether that would be the case had been an unanswered question throughout the film’s release, which was delayed a year by the pandemic and ultimately debuted both in theaters and on HBO Max.

Warner Bros. Chairman Toby Emmerich said the studio will release “Dune: Part II” in October 2023. This time, the release is expected to be exclusively in theaters. Arguing that “Dune” belonged to the big screen, Villeneuve had protested passionately when Warner Bros. turned to hybrid releases for all of its 2021 films due to the pandemic.

But Villeneuve had lobbied hard for a sequel to “Dune,” which he has said is easily the best movie he’s made. It stars Timothee Chalamet, Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Jason Momoa and Zendaya. Some actors, like Zendaya, would potentially have a larger role in part two.

“This is only the beginning,” said Villeneuve in a statement.

Over the weekend, “Dune” launched with a solid $40.1 million in ticket sales in U.S. and Canada theaters. “Dune,” a 155-minute $165-million movie that introduces itself as “Part 1,” has thus far grossed $225 million worldwide.

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‘Dune: Part II’ planned for 2023 — and not on HBO MaxJake Coyle | AP Film Writeron October 26, 2021 at 7:00 pm Read More »

Chicago Blackhawks: Other NHL teams may be impacted by allegationsVincent Pariseon October 26, 2021 at 7:20 pm

The Chicago Blackhawks have been the topic of conversation on Tuesday. It is for all the wrong reasons and it has nothing to do with the fact that they are 0-5-1 and a disgrace of a hockey team on the ice. It has everything to do with the fact that they have been dealing with […] Chicago Blackhawks: Other NHL teams may be impacted by allegations – Da Windy City – Da Windy City – A Chicago Sports Site – Bears, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, Fighting Illini & MoreRead More

Chicago Blackhawks: Other NHL teams may be impacted by allegationsVincent Pariseon October 26, 2021 at 7:20 pm Read More »

E. Faye Butler conveys powerful tale through words — and music — in ‘Fannie Lou Hamer’ storySteven Oxman – For the Sun-Timeson October 26, 2021 at 5:53 pm

E. Faye Butler stars as 1960s civil rights and voting rights advocate Fannie Lou Hamer in “Fannie (The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer)” directed by Henry Godinez at the Goodman Theatre. | Liz Lauren

In “Fannie (The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer),” the songs take us beyond the facts of Hamer’s life into something deeper about what steeled her.

In 1964, at the Democratic National Convention, a woman new to the national stage spoke to a committee soon after Martin Luther King Jr. The committee meeting, about the seating a controversial all-white delegation from Mississippi, was being televised live.

Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer was a sharecropper from the Mississippi Delta, an area that has been labeled as the most Southern place on Earth. She was the youngest of 20 children, had spent nearly all of her life on plantations, and spoke with a type of drawl that made it clear she hadn’t been polished for the masses. Her authenticity, her straightforwardness, her readily apparent resoluteness gave her a special presence.

But when she started to tell her story of trying and failing to register to vote, the cameras suddenly cut away. President Johnson had called a spontaneous press conference at the White House, just to pull the focus from Hamer’s testimony. The gambit didn’t go unnoticed, and Hamer’s testimony was replayed widely. Fannie Lou Hamer became a nationally known figure because the president of the United States would rather the country not know her name.

Cheryl L. West’s one-person play with music, “Fannie (The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer)” starts with this very scene of interruption and newfound fame. And as she goes back in time and through the story of Hamer’s life over the next intermission-less 70 minutes, West expresses quite clearly that her subject was as brave and resolute as one can imagine a human to be.

What takes this beyond a more traditional one-person play is the frequent incorporation of music. As Hamer says early on, “Nothing like a song to find your truth in someone else’s story.” The songs take us beyond the facts of Hamer’s life into something deeper about what steeled her.

In West’s depiction, music is there when Hamer most needs it. When a white police officer pulls over a bus of protestors, who become silent in fear, Hamer sings to summon courage. When she’s beaten terribly for her efforts, leaving permanent damage, she sings to summon resolution and love. When her daughter passes away from an ailment partly due to malnutrition, and Hamer feels riddled not just with grief but with guilt, she sings to summon self-forgiveness.

The music, a mix of spirituals and protest songs, also makes the magnificent E. Faye Butler the perfect performer to play Fannie Lou Hamer. Actually, she would be pretty darn perfect even if there were no music, but it’s the singing that ultimately carries the most inspirational moments of this show.

Accompanied by three onstage musicians, Butler moves fluidly between speech and song, helped by lighting designer Jason Lynch. The model here is much less musical theater and more church service, with music as punctuation and expression of aspirational emotion. The band members — Deonte Brantley, Morgan E., and Felton Offard — provide occasional encouragement as well as background vocals, and the music direction from Offard invests the sound with 60s-ish jazz appropriate to the story.

Everything here under Henry Godinez’s direction — including the set (Collete Pollard), costumes (Michael Alan Stein), and projections (Rassean Davonte Johnson) — is intended to serve the focus on Butler’s Fannie, which is exactly as it should be, and Godinez is careful not to over-produce the theatrical elements that likely weren’t available when an abridged version of this piece was performed in Chicago parks last year during the extended shutdown of indoor theaters.

There are elements I wished there were more of. We don’t get much about Hamer’s early life, even though there’s a collection of Hamer recordings entitled “Songs My Mother Taught Me.” And we’re not ever quite led to understand what made LBJ so concerned about Hamer, that she didn’t present the image of the civil rights movement that politicians wanted to project. Butler presents a polished depiction of a woman known for presenting plainspoken groundedness.

That said, Butler conveys Hamer’s story with great clarity and power. She captures how Hamer’s learning about her right to vote at the age of 44 compelled her to act. She puts deep conviction behind Hamer’s stalwart beliefs in freedom as well as her economic idealism — she founded a successful communal farm later in her life. She helps us see the weight and consequences of the responsibilities she took on, in particular, and poignantly, the exhaustion.

After all, Martin Luther King is most famous for saying “I have a dream.” Fannie Lou Hamer’s most famous quote is the one on her gravestone: “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

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E. Faye Butler conveys powerful tale through words — and music — in ‘Fannie Lou Hamer’ storySteven Oxman – For the Sun-Timeson October 26, 2021 at 5:53 pm Read More »

Blackhawks’ Stan Bowman resigns in overhaul over sexual assault cover-upBen Popeon October 26, 2021 at 6:25 pm

Longtime Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman was fired Tuesday. | AP file photo

The two most powerful people in the Hawks’ hockey operations are gone following an investigation into their handling of the Bradley Aldrich 2010 sexual assault allegations.

Stan Bowman’s reign as the Blackhawks’ general manager and hockey operations president is over.

Bowman and right-hand man Al MacIsaac, formerly the two most powerful people in the Hawks’ hockey operations, were forced out Tuesday.

Their departures headline an organizational overhaul enacted after releasing the results of an investigation into the handling of allegations that former video coach Bradley Aldrich sexually assaulted two players shortly before the 2010 Stanley Cup championship.

Kyle Davidson will take over as interim general manager while the Hawks — whose regular season continues Wednesday at home against the Maple Leafs — begin a search for a permanent replacement.

Hawks CEO Danny Wirtz said he has informed team lawyers to seek settlements in two negligence lawsuits related to Aldrich that were filed against the team earlier this year and brought the allegations into the public eye.

Reid Schar, a former U.S. attorney who headed the investigation conducted by the Chicago law firm Jenner & Block for almost four months, said the investigation interviewed 139 witnesses.

This story will be updated.

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Blackhawks’ Stan Bowman resigns in overhaul over sexual assault cover-upBen Popeon October 26, 2021 at 6:25 pm Read More »

Chicago Blackhawks: Stan Bowman is “stepping aside” as GMVincent Pariseon October 26, 2021 at 6:36 pm

There is a lot of turmoil surrounding the Chicago Blackhawks right now. They are a bad hockey team at 0-5-1 and that doesn’t even slightly tell the story of the issues within the organization right now. They have had a sexual assault investigation from events that happened during their run to the Stanley Cup Final […] Chicago Blackhawks: Stan Bowman is “stepping aside” as GM – Da Windy City – Da Windy City – A Chicago Sports Site – Bears, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, Fighting Illini & MoreRead More

Chicago Blackhawks: Stan Bowman is “stepping aside” as GMVincent Pariseon October 26, 2021 at 6:36 pm Read More »