Jonathan Toews spent much of the last year feeling more like an astronaut than a hockey player.

“It was just a lot of things coming unglued — the normal routine, the normal people you’re surrounded by, the usual things you expect out of yourself,” Toews said Thursday, quietly but honestly, after the Blackhawks’ first day of training camp.

“We all have habits and routines every day that we rely on to find some sense of normalcy and consistency in our lives. And when none of that was there, you kind of feel like you’re in outer space sometimes.”

Over the past few months, though, Toews has finally felt himself coming back to earth.

Some of the things the 33-year-old captain experienced regularly for more than a decade returned again Thursday: the quiet of the locker room in the morning, the excitement and nervousness for day one, the huffing and puffing during end-of-practice laps.

His body feels closer to normal, too. Despite skating informally at Fifth Third Arena for the past several weeks, an official practice represented a step up in intensity, and Toews finished it pleased with how it went.

“As dog-tired as I was out there today, it’s a good feeling,” he said. “Instead of, ‘OK, I’m in trouble; I’m going to be up on the couch for two days doing nothing.’ So to me, that’s progress… [I’m] just feeling a lot better.”

The medical details of Toews’ health issues over the past year — of exactly what left him feeling “drained and lethargic” enough to miss an entire season — are tough to nail down.

He said in a brief video in June he’d been diagnosed with chronic immune response syndrome (CIRS), a condition about which little information exists. He said Thursday he believes COVID-19 aftereffects impacted him, as well; he never tested positive for the virus, but did for antibodies later on.

But even as he slowly re-enters the spotlight, Toews remains clearly reluctant to make his story be about either COVID or CIRS specifically.

“It’s never that simple,” he said. “My health kind of hit a wall, and a lot of things add up to that… The last 10-plus years here in Chicago have gone by in a flash because it’s been one thing, all the time. That adds up. It takes a toll on you in a lot of ways: mentally, physically and emotionally.

“It was good for me to check out, and try and pick the pieces back up and come back to the game with a new approach and a new appreciation for it.”

The team was understandably thrilled by Toews’ return. Patrick Kane mentioned missing Toews’ strength on the puck and ability to fight off defenders along with his presence off the ice.

But many young Hawks don’t actually know their captain that well. Some have never played with him at all before.

“After a year off, you’re coming into a new team,” Kane said.

“It’s definitely a weird dynamic that I’ve thought about,” Toews said. “[I’m] not trying to come in and do too much and take [it all] on my shoulders. [I will] try to make some of these new guys feel included, so they don’t have to walk on eggshells in that locker room. This is their room, so…we can all kind of feed off each other that way.”

As far as his own preparation, Toews has a ways to go. He’s still “chipping away” at his conditioning and working to get hockey to “slow down” in his mind like it used to.

At least there’s a timeline in place now, though. He admitted Thursday his goal is to play in the Oct. 13 season opener. He and everyone else will find out over the next three weeks whether that’s actually possible.

“I’m just taking one day at a time,” he added. “That’s all I can really handle right now.”

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Who’s winning the Bears-Browns game? How will Justin Fields play? And what will his offense even look like? Patrick Finley, Mark Potash and Jason Lieser break down the Bears’ Week 3 — and the most anticipated game in a long time.

New episodes of “Halas Intrigue” will be published regularly with accompanying stories collected on the podcast’s hub page. You can also listen to “Halas Intrigue” wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Luminary, Spotify, and Stitcher.

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Nothing short of a new, preferably domed, stadium — either in parking lots next to Soldier Field or at McCormick Place East — will prevent the Bears from moving to Arlington Heights, a sports marketing expert said Thursday.

Chicagoan Marc Ganis has advised numerous NFL teams on their stadium financing. He has closely followed the Bears stadium saga for decades, including former team president Michael McCaskey’s flirtations with sites in Gary, Indiana, Hoffman Estates, the Near West Side and the ill-fated McDome project adjacent to McCormick Place.

Ganis said the “economics of the NFL” have “changed dramatically” in the two decades since Chicago chose what was then the political path of least resistance — renovating Soldier Field at a cost of $660 million — which won’t be paid off until 2032.

That’s why he believes the Bears’ bid for the Arlington International Racecourse property in Arlington Heights will be a prelude to building a new stadium there — unless Mayor Lori Lightfoot can find the public money and summon the political will to build a new stadium in Chicago.

Another renovation is not enough, he said.

“Short of creating a domed type of project, which would be a new facility in that same general area with public sector support because of increased costs, I don’t see how there’s a long-term solution along the lakefront,” Ganis said Thursday.

“It wouldn’t really matter that much if the mayor said you could do naming rights. You could do gambling. And you can have more advertising. You can put in more events. The building itself was economically obsolete before the concrete dried.”

Among the ideas floated in the past for a new Bears stadium was this 2001 concept from the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois for a retractable-dome stadium on the parking lot just north of what is now Guaranteed Rate Field, home of the White Sox.Sun-Times file

Ganis said Los Angeles Rams’ CEO Stan Kroenke recently took him on a tour of $5.5 billion SoFi Stadium.

“It’s spectacular. We’re not gonna build something like that here. But the Bears, for their future, need something significantly better. And it just isn’t gonna happen within the colonnades of Soldier Field,” he said.

Ganis pegged the cost of a new stadium on the racecourse property at roughly $2 billion.

How could a team that’s essentially a McCaskey family business — exception for the 19.6% share owned by Patrick Ryan and Andy McKenna — afford that?

“The NFL will participate for a very significant amount of money. Multiple hundreds of millions for a new stadium. And the Bears will sell seat licenses. In L.A., the Rams’ seat licenses generated over $600 million,” Ganis said.

“And then, you’ve got all of the revenue streams you don’t have at Soldier Field with a stadium that’s designed to maximize revenue streams along with other events that may take place. And real estate development that makes sense to take place around the stadium as they’re doing in L.A. and in other markets.”

Earlier this week, Lightfoot said she wants the Bears to stay in Chicago and will work with the team she loves to expand and improve Soldier Field and maximize year-round revenues, but in a “fiscally-prudent way that doesn’t preclude other uses.”

The Bears opened their renovated Soldier Field with a game against the Green Bay Packers on Sept. 29, 2003.AFP/Getty Images

But two architects who worked on the renovation and a structural engineer familiar with the project told the Sun-Times the mayor’s hands may be tied by the constraints of a lakefront seating bowl towering over historic colonnades at a stadium that’s also a war memorial.

Chicago architects Dirk Lohan and Adrian Smith said the current 61,500 capacity — the NFL’s smallest — can be expanded only a little, and only in the end zones. A retractable roof would be difficult, requiring a new support structure.

Ganis agrees. He’s already moving on to talk of possible sites for a new lakefront stadium.

Besides the parking lots, “they’re still trying to figure out what to do with the McCormick Place [East] building that’s almost never used. So there is land there to do it. But whether there’s a desire to is another question,” he said.

McCormick Place East (center front), also known as the Lakeside Center, is the oldest and least-used part of the convention center. It’s a logical site for a new Bears stadium to replace nearby Soldier Field (far right), said sports consultant Marc Ganis.Sun-Times file

Stadium “choices” and mistakes made decades ago have limited the mayor’s options, Ganis said.

“So if you’re asking me, as a person who’s worked on so many of these deals, ‘Is there a viable, advantageous way to extend the term at Soldier Field?,’ my response would be, ‘Not really.’ I would be quite pessimistic about that. Is there an opportunity to increase those odds to keep the team within that general area? Yes, but that would entail doing something that was proposed decades ago and shelved,” he said.

Bears spokesman Scott Hagel could not be reached for comment. The mayor’s office had no immediate comment. Asked about Lakeside Center as a stadium site, Cynthia McCafferty, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which owns McCormick Place, said: “Any decision of that nature would have to be made by our board of directors.”

Ganis said the only other site that would make sense for a new stadium would be the old U.S. Steel South Works site — a long haul for the Bears’ fan base.

“Arlington Park is an excellent site for the future of the Bears. It fits their ticket demographics,” he said.

“It fits for the access — both by mass transit and by roads. It is a site people are used to going to. And it’s available. That, in and of itself, is not an insignificant matter. And it’s used to having tens of thousands of people go to that site on a regular basis.”

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CLEVELAND — They didn’t sprint in from the outfield, dash across the diamond or spill out of the dugout and bullpen in a hurly-burly blur.

They didn’t even jog.

Let the record show that when White Sox closer Liam Hendriks struck out the Indians’ Myles Straw here Thursday to nail down a 7-2 victory that clinched a division title, the American League Central champs barely moved a muscle. Hendriks went a little nuts, sure, but he rolls out of bed like that.

“I really like the fact that I was able to blow someone’s doors off for the final out,” he said.

But the rest of the team? They kind of just ambled.

Catcher Yasmani Grandal met Hendriks halfway between the mound and the plate, where a routine congratulatory exchange got the job done. Middle infielders Tim Anderson and Cesar Hernandez had a brief moment by second base. Corner infielders Yoan Moncada and Jose Abreu shuffled toward each other like college buddies at a 50th reunion. The dugout emptied as if in slow motion. Outfielders and relievers straggled in like it was any old day at all.

By God, it was perfect.

The Sox have qualified for a second straight postseason for the first time ever. They have their first division title since 2008. They have all the reason in the world to cut loose … a few weeks from now when they’ve clinched a divisional series. They can skitter around the field deliriously … when they’ve won the AL pennant. As for the World Series, well, let the final out then lead to the mother of all dogpiles.

But the 2021 Sox were too obviously good, too talented, too stacked not to get to this point. They haven’t done a dang thing yet.

“We all understand this is just a start,” Anderson said. “We’re going to celebrate this and put it behind us and keep it moving, keep pushing, and hopefully we can do something special.”

To get to all that, though, the Sox had to bring themselves to a boil so they could win a game on this wet, cold, gray road trip that sure has an October feel — weather-wise, not drama-wise — to it.

Enter Anderson, who put the Sox on the board and gave them a spark with a leadoff homer against Aaron Civale. The player manager Tony La Russa refers to as the team’s “ignitor” traded customary hand slaps with first-base coach Daryl Boston and third-base coach Joe McEwing. He was greeted at home plate by No. 2 hitter Moncada and near the on-deck circle by Abreu. He was met at the top step of the dugout by La Russa and then traveled the length of the dugout, slapping and bumping through a phalanx of fired-up teammates and coaches until there was only Billy Hamilton left to greet him. They hugged.

Sox emotion poured into the second inning, when Luis Robert and Eloy Jimenez bombed away with back-to-back homers to left. In the dugout, Anderson danced. Back at the plate with two on, Anderson hit another one out to right. This time, he slide-stepped his way from third to home, facing the dugout and pointing at his teammates with both hands.

“We wanted it more than them,” he said, “and it showed.”

Now, it has to keep showing.

“Here we are, the division champs,” La Russa said.

“One thing you experience over the years: winning never gets old. It gets better. It just gets better because you appreciate more what everybody had to do to get here. And that’s the message for all the guys, [especially] the first-timers: It gets better. In fact, it can get better this year.”

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All Blackhawks players and coaches are vaccinated against COVID-19, general manager Stan Bowman said Thursday as training camp began.

“It’s pretty challenging if you have players that aren’t vaccinated as far as day-to-day activities, so from the logistical side of it, it’s much easier,” Bowman said. “But also it’s just a sign of the players’ commitment to try to be safe.”

As a result, the Hawks won’t have to deal with any of the NHL’s strict guidelines for unvaccinated players, which separate them from their teammates in virtually all settings.

The Hawks also won’t have to deal with absent players on Canadian road trips, as unvaccinated players must quarantine whenever crossing the border.

“It’s nice to not have to think about that as much and be closer to normal life,” Connor Murphy said. “I think it’ll hit us when we have the fans back at the United Center, just…hearing that noise and atmosphere. It will be a night-and-day difference than last year.”

The NHL is pacing well above most other major sports leagues in vaccination rate, with deputy commissioner Bill Daly estimating last week there are only 10-15 unvaccinated players left.

Ex-Hawks defenseman Duncan Keith is currently missing the start of Oilers training camp because he only recently received his shot; Oilers GM Ken Holland told reporters it was a “difficult decision” for Keith.

First look at lines

The Hawks’ lines and pairs will likely change significantly over the next three weeks, but Thursday provided a glimpse at coach Jeremy Colliton’s initial ideas.

Tyler Johnson centered Patrick Kane and Alex DeBrincat on the first forward line, while Jonathan Toews centered Brandon Hagel and Dominik Kubalik. Top prospect Lukas Reichel also practiced in group A, skating alongside Kirby Dach and Philipp Kurashev. Dylan Strome found himself on the wing of fourth-liners Ryan Carpenter and Jujhar Khaira.

Defensively, new additions Seth Jones and Jake McCabe were paired together, while Connor Murphy skated with Riley Stillman, Calvin de Haan with Wyatt Kalynuk and Caleb Jones with Nicolas Beaudin.

Adam Gaudette, Alex Nylander, Ian Mitchell and Malcolm Subban notably practiced alongside the prospects and AHL players in groups B and C.

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Good afternoon. Here’s the latest news you need to know in Chicago. It’s about a 5-minute read that will brief you on today’s biggest stories.

This afternoon will be partly sunny with a high near 64 degrees and wind gusts as high as 25 mph. Tonight will be mostly clear with a low around 50. Tomorrow will be sunny and windy with a high near 78.

Top story

Pritzker announces $40 million workforce recovery grant program, a ‘key component’ for state’s pandemic recovery

Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced a $40 million workforce recovery grant program aimed at helping job seekers get back to work and small businesses in industries hit hard by the pandemic rebuild their workforces.

The grant program is one “key component” of the state’s pandemic recovery, Pritzker said today at Revolution Workshop in Garfield Park.

The governor also said the state will expand its youth career pathways program, investing $4.4 million in 20 organizations around the state that serve young people who might be at risk of dropping out, experiencing violence or who “otherwise would meaningfully benefit from training programs that open new doors.”

Pritzker said programs announced today aren’t “the goals in and of themselves, but they are the key components of our recovery from the pandemic and our commitment to build a better Illinois for everyone.”

The $40 million for the workforce recovery grant program comes from money the state received through the American Rescue Plan Act.

The grant program will use the state’s job training and economic development program model to increase access to education, training, and “supportive services needed for vulnerable residents to successfully re-enter the labor force,” according to a news release on the program.

Rachel Hinton has more on the program and grant recipients here.

More news you need

President Joe Biden will visit Chicago next Wednesday to “highlight the importance of COVID-19 vaccine requirements for businesses.” Biden plans to visit a local business enforcing a vaccine mandate, a White House official said.

An arrest warrant has been issued for an Oak Lawn woman who failed to appear for her first court date after allegedly using a phony COVID-19 vaccination card to vacation in Hawaii. She faces a misdemeanor charge for violating the state’s COVID emergency proclamation, which requires visitors to show proof of full vaccination or a negative test.

An 18-year-old man has been charged with a fatal home invasion in South Shore, while three others have been released from custody. He was one of three people in masks who entered a home around 5:30 a.m. and shot and killed Ben Sims, police said.

Chicago is now home to the First Women’s Bank, a bank its founders say is the first and only women-led and women-focused bank in the country. A ribbon-cutting ceremony yesterday served as the grand opening for the bank’s headquarters in West Town.

A Boston-area man who disarmed a gunman robbing passengers on a CTA Blue Line train in 2019 was just awarded a medal and $5,500 for his good deed from the Carnegie Hero Fund. Jean-Paul LaPierre was on a crowded train car on his way downtown to run the Chicago Marathon when he encountered the gunman, took his gun and held him until police arrived.

A bright one

Things to do in Chicago for music fans

Every week, we update our categorized lists of things to do in and around the city. We’ve got a list of things to do for fans of movies, dance, museums and more. For music fans, this weekend boasts several opportunities to catch some great artists and enjoy the good weather in the forecast.

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Maestro Riccardo Muti conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2017. (C) Todd Rosenberg Photography

Ricardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra reunite for their first concerts since February 2020 with a series of three performances in a fall residency. The opening program (starting tonight and running through Saturday) features music by Joseph Bologne-Chevalier de Saint-George and Florence Price as well as Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 3 (Eroica).”

Berwyn Blues Festival

Black Joe Lewis, who performs Saturday with his band at the Berwyn Blues Festival. Connor Beitel Photo

The inaugural Berwyn Blues Festival kicks off tomorrow and runs through Sunday at FitzGerald’s, 6615 W. Roosevelt Rd. The lineup includes Shemekia Copeland, Ronnie Baker Brooks, Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears and more.

Hyde Park Jazz Festival

The Hyde Park Jazz Festival returns this weekend with mostly outdoor performances. Festival highlights include the debut of local drummer and band leader Makaya McCraven’s new piece commissioned by the festival plus sets by Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Dee Alexander & the Metropolitan Jazz Octet and more.

You can learn more about these events and other upcoming highlights here.

From the press box

Your daily question ?

If you could be on one reality competition or game show, which would you choose? Tell us why.

Email us (please include your first name and where you live) and we might include your answer in the next Afternoon Edition.

Happy first day of autumn! Where’s the best place to see peak fall foliage in the city? Here’s what some of you said…

“Morton Arboretum (though not actually the city).” — Bill Schilling

“If you don’t want to drive to suburbs, go to the north end of Legion Park, southwest corner of the intersection at Peterson and Lincoln. Not only is it one of the most vibrant cluster of trees, the colors usually last longer than most other neighborhoods.” — Manisha Makwana

“Cindy’s Rooftop overlooking Millennium Park, a classic view!” — Erika Hoffmann

“Longwood Drive in Beverly.” — Wesley Jacob Astor Paul

Thanks for reading the Chicago Sun-Times Afternoon Edition. Got a story you think we missed? Email us here.

Sign up here to get the Afternoon Edition in your inbox every day.

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With the Bears up by 17 with about six minutes to play Sunday, defensive tackle Akiem Hicks was double-teamed by the Bengals’ center and right guard — but just for a second. Quarterback Joe Burrow threw a tunnel screen to the left to receiver Tee Higgins, who caught the ball outside the numbers and weaved up the left sideline.

Hicks took off down the field for Higgins.

“Sometimes you gotta run, man … ” Hicks said after the game. “I saw him working his way and he was wiggling through some guys. And then he popped out.”

And then Hicks squished him. Weighing 120 pounds more than Higgins, Hicks tackled the receiver nine yards from the line of scrimmage. Higgins had to be helped off the field.

“That’s part of the emphasis we were talking about,” Hicks said. “Every play you need to have that same burst.”

The play turned heads during the Bears’ film review Tuesday.

“You could feel the excitement that it had in the room,” defensive coordinator Sean Desai said Thursday. “Anytime we get guys pursuing to the ball, it’s something that we try to pride ourselves on. He’s the prime example on that play. Good things happen when you run to the ball, whether you take the ball away or deliver big hits, and opponents see that and opponents can feel that swarm and that energy.”

In Week 1, only four teams allowed more points than the Bears, who gave up 34 to the Rams. In Week 2, only four teams allowed fewer points than the 17 the Bears gave up to the Bengals.

What was the difference? Players pointed to the swarm, while Desai preached the value of technique, discipline and fundamentals. That’s ignoring one critical, obvious point: the Rams are Super Bowl contenders, while the Bengals are projected to finish last in their division. Sunday’s opponent, the Browns, are in the Rams’ tier, if not above them. They’ve averaged 30 points per game, sixth-most in the NFL.

If the secret to the Bears’ success was the swarm, let’s see them do it against an elite team.

“We know what we put out there [in Week 1] wasn’t Chicago Bears football, and it bothered us,” defensive lineman Bilal Nichols said. “We made it an emphasis all last week to come in, get better and get back to swarming and get back to doing what we do. I think we did that on Sunday.”

The Bears stressed the swarm in Week 1, too. It was a greater point of emphasis against the Bengals, Desai said, because of that failure.

“We are trying to uphold that standard,” he said. “Which is a difficult thing to do.”

Outside linebacker Robert Quinn said Bears defenders need to focus on “doing our one-11th” — a new twist on the old Bill Belichick “Do Your Job” slogan.

“If you’ve got coverage, make sure your man doesn’t catch it,” Quinn said. “If you’ve got to rush, make sure you get to the quarterback and stop the run if they decide to run your way.

“The good thing about playing defense is you don’t have to make it too complicated to be great.”

Swarming, Hicks said, is “something we’re going to have to stay on ourselves about.” That shouldn’t be too hard after the Rams debacle. Following the season-opening loss in Los Angeles, the Bears flew all night and landed back home at 5 a.m.

“It sits with you differently,” Hicks said. “Not only are you tired, but you just got done getting whupped … As long as we remember that feeling, we should be good.”

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The families of three men killed in an explosion near Starved Rock State Park have sued the construction companies and demolition team they believe left behind an undetonated explosive device.

The families’ attorneys have hinted for months that the explosion was connected to demolition work near the state park.

Little Village residents Immer Rivera Tejada, 39, Rafael Rivera Tejada, 36, and their nephew Guillermo Rivera Tejada, 26, were killed in the explosion May 6. The men routinely visited Starved Rock to fish, and it was common for them to make a campfire on the bank of the river and cook the day’s catch.

“To these three fathers, they used what appeared to them to be a copper pipe — just an innocent looking copper pipe on the shore — and they used it to prop up the handle of their pan to cook the fish,” said Patrick Salvi, an attorney with the firm Salvi, Schostok and Pritchard.

“Unbeknownst to them, this was no copper pipe. As it turns out, this copper pipe was an undetonated linear shape charge — an explosive device that was most recently used in the demolition of Route 178 Bridge less than two months earlier.”

The explosion left seven children ages 3 to 15 fatherless, Salvi said.

Maluc Cordoba-Arce, the family spokeswoman and wife of Immer Rivera Tejada, said they always knew the men were innocent victims.

“These men were three pillars of our family. Our children will now grow up without their dads, without their love and support,” Cordoba-Arce said. “We live in Chicago, three different houses on the same block all together, we are a very close family and words cannot fully describe the depths of the pain we feel to lose so many family members all at once.”

Cordoba-Arce fought back tears describing the past several months.

“We will never be the same because of a tragedy that should have never happened,” Cordoba-Arce said. “I am here to pursue the justice and accountability our family deserves and, most importantly, to prevent any other families from going through what my family is going through each and every day.”

Salvi said the deaths sparked an investigation by the Illinois State Police and the FBI that yielded a 600-page report. Through that report, and an investigation by the families’ attorneys, they claim D. Construction, Gillan Construction and Orica USA were responsible for leaving behind the explosive device that killed the three men.

D. Construction and Orica USA declined to comment on this story. Gillan Construction did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

These companies “brought these explosive devices, planned the demolition, transported the devices, utilized these devices and then lost the devices,” Salvi said. An unaccounted for device “fell into the hands of three unknowing fishermen,” Salvi said.

“One of the most disturbing parts of the investigation was that there was not just this one explosive device left behind,” Salvi said. “The investigation revealed just 11 days after the initial demolition, another undetonated linear shape charge was found and not surprisingly, contrary to Illinois law, was not reported.”

On March 18, there was a scheduled implosion of Route 178 Bridge by the companies under a contract with the Illinois Department of Transportation, according to the lawsuit. Linear shaped explosives were used because of the bridge’s steel trusses. An employee of D. Construction found a leftover charge on March 29 but it wasn’t reported to the state, the lawsuit said.

Less than two months later, the men would find a second device and use it as a prop to cook their fish. Salvi said the residue found on the victims match that of the same compound found in the explosive devices used to demolish the bridge.

Salvi said these devices have no markings on them that indicate it can explode but simply look like a hollow rod.

“We allege the companies, through their employees and agents, failed to control the explosive materials,” Salvi said. “They failed to perform what’s known as a post-blast inspection.”

Salvi said a careful inspection would have shown an explosive device did not properly detonate and the need to find it.

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Like most boys, I have an outsize interest in emergency gear. From road flares to safety goggles. It could be the most mundane thing. A fire extinguisher. A sewing kit. You name it. Certain devices practically vibrate with possibility. Even a flashlight is halfway to an adventure story: the rainy night, the dark cave, the unexpected bear.

Especially life rings. Beats there a human heart so dead as to be able to pass one of those, on a Chicago bridge, say, and not imagine the cry for help, the perfect toss to some unfortunate thrashing in the river below? The dripping rescued person. The stammered thanks. “Mister … you saved my life!”

That’s the fantasy. The reality is more complicated.

The Chicago Park District announced it was going to start placing life rings along strategic spots on the waterfront, in the wake of the tragic drowning of Miguel Cisneros in Lake Michigan in August, less than six feet from the pier. His family felt that if there were a life ring, the 19-year-old could have been saved.

Maybe. I don’t want to dispute with a grieving family. But the views of the bereaved and public pressure do not always lead to good policy. A question arose that cuts to the heart of this: Does anyone ever get saved by life rings?

A quick check of the Sun-Times and Tribune archives found nothing, unless you count sailors plucked out of the Atlantic during World War II. Ditto for a century of the Daily News. The Red Cross deferred to the Coast Guard, which is mum. The Department of Transportation maintains 27 life rings on the Riverwalk, and 135 scattered around branches of the river. But they don’t keep track of how they’re used, other than to note that 20% vanish every year.

A life ring along the Riverwalk in the Loop. The Chicago Department of Transportation maintains 27 life rings on the Riverwalk, but does not track how, or how often, they are used. They do know that about one-fifth of them vanish every year.Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

The Chicago Park District, despite embracing the rings, has no info. Nor does the Chicago Police Department. The Fire Department, however, says the rings save lives.

“Yes they do,” said CFD spokesman Larry Langford, who has been around. “I know they have been used from vessels and bridges.”

Of course having a ring at hand, and being able to use it to save someone, are two very different matters. I tracked down a retired fire official in Florida who had long experience with life rings.

“Within 10 or 15 feet, they’re very easy to use,” he said. “When you start throwing a life ring any distance, where most of those drownings occur, with the wind and the waves, life rings are difficult to deploy.”

Still, he’s a fan.

“A life ring is better than nothing,” he said.

Halle Quezada, co-founder of Chicago Alliance for Waterfront Safety, is an enthusiastic supporter.

“They definitely are several saves in Chicago every year,” she said. “We do see them happening.”

She also corrected one misconception about life rings. The idea is not just to fling them at a drowning person.

“Life rings also protect the rescuer,” she said. Here she touched upon an all-too familiar situation: a swimmer is in distress, someone on the shore goes in after them — and also drowns. The rings are meant to be grabbed by the person going in.

“Maybe they don’t get it to the person they’re trying to save,” Quezada said. “But they save the person compelled to get into the water, so you don’t have multiple casualties.”

She put me in touch with Matthew Lipinski, a nurse anesthetist from Logan Square, who was at a beach north of Traverse City, Michigan last month with his two daughters when he saw a rip current — he’s a certified scuba instructor. He was just warning other parents when he saw a 79-year-old woman on a pool noodle get in trouble because of the currents. As well as her daughter, trying to rescue her. And a third person attempting to help.

Matthew Lipinski, with his daughters at the beach. Last month he used a life ring to help rescue three people at a beach in Michigan.Provided

“There were two life rings with lines set up,” he said. “I grabbed one life ring with line, and used the rip current to get out to the 79-year-old.”

He has no doubt about the rings’ usefulness.

“Without that life ring there, there would have been a horrible outcome for probably everyone involved,” Lipinski said, noting that the only reason the rings were there was that the mother of a teen who drowned at that beach in 2012 had lobbied for them.

“Life rings are a cheap and easy way to save lives,” he said. “They’re needed along the lakeshore of Chicago. Lake Michigan is underestimated. It’s actually a very treacherous body of water, and anything that can be done to make it safer should be employed.”

It helps a lot to know what you’re doing — like Lipinski. And don’t forget the rings have a purpose, even when they’re just sitting, waiting to save somebody: they look neat, and give pedestrians something exciting to think about as they stride by, safe, on dry land.

Life rings from the Edmund Fitzgerald at the Inland Seas Maritime Museum in Vermilion, Ohio in 2000. Like most life rings, these were never used, but floated to the surface of Lake Superior when the tanker sank in 1975.Associated Press

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Conductor Riccardo Muti has extended his contract as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra by one year through the 2022-23 season.

The 80-year-old Italian became music director of the CSO in 2010, succeeding Daniel Barenboim.

The deal calls for Muti to lead 10 weeks of concerts in Chicago during the 2022-23 season and four weeks on tour, which will include a trip to China, Japan and Taiwan.

The CSO said that season will include performances of Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnic (Solemn Mass)” in June 2023 and the world premiere of a work commissioned by the CSO from Jessie Montgomery.

Muti is scheduled to conduct the CSO’s season-opening performance Thursday night in their first performance together since February 2020, a gap caused by the pandemic.

“After such a challenging time without the opportunity to connect to the joy of live music, we are grateful that Maestro Muti has accepted our invitation to stay with us to make music that lifts our spirits and inspires us,” CSO Association board chair Helen Zell said in a statement.

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