Cubs lose. White Sox lose. Elections are depressing. Stock market tanks. Economy shrivels. The Bears? Who knows? The Bulls? Who cares?

We need some positive news, and so I offer:

The Blackhawks.

Correct, the Chicago professional hockey team that has been in hibernation for the past.. well, can anyone remember off the top of his head when it last won the Stanley Cup? (The answer is 1961; I had to Google it.)

The same Blackhawks whose owners treated the team’s fans worse than any team in professional sports. The owners that blacked out local telecasts of the Blackhawks because if fans wanted to see the team, let ‘em buy a ticket, a policy that emptied thousands of seats. The team that once was the jewel of Chicago sportsdom, but slide in stature behind the minor league Wolves hockey team playing in Rosemont.

Two generations of Wirtz family ownership established itself as possibly the most stingy and inept proprietors of a sports team in a town noted for a century of cheapskate and incompetent owners, and that’s really saying something. Real estate mogul Arthur Wirtz reputedly bought the team decades ago to have a tenant for his old Chicago Stadium, much like the Ice Capades, which he also had a share of. Critics asserted that quality hockey was a second thought, if a thought at all, and judging by the results, the observation pretty much stands unchallenged.

His son, William (AKA Dollar Bill because of the way he held on to each one) was legendary for not putting money into the team. When one of the greatest hockey players of all time, Bobby Hull, defected from the Blackhawks to play in a competing league in Winnipeg, Bill (then team president) was supposedly crushed—but not enough to pay the going rate for an all-star. Fans, needless to say, were more than crushed. (However, it must be said that Wirtz did us a favor as the throwback he was by not putting a cent of taxpayer money into the Stadium’s replacement, the United Center.)

The result of all this was most predictable: The Blackhawks, as one of the original six members of the National Hockey League, have been surpassed in their mediocrity by teams from such non-frigid climes as Anaheim, Tampa Bay, Raleigh and other newcomers that have won the Stanley Club since the Blackhawks.

Then a year ago, William Wirtz died and his half-billion-dollar empire that included liquor distributors such as Judge & Dolph, Ltd. passed on to his two sons, Rocky and Peter. The two decided that Rocky would handle the Blackhawks and Peter the rest, and the sun rose. This is not meant to knock the deceased, but to hail a new beginning.

“Resurgence” is the word now most often attributed to the franchise. Rocky Wirtz immediately began a marketing campaign to win back fans, and brought back to center ice popular names that long had disassociated themselves from the franchise. A new TV contract now will telecast every regular season game on Comcast SportsNet or WGN-TV Channel 9. A strengthened team, including coaching and management, is set to begin the season. The steps had a quick payoff as the first pre-season game last month nearly sold out the place, a rarity.

I don’t know much about hockey. Actually, I didn’t know anything about hockey until my son joined a local team and I watched from the stands with other hockey moms and dads shouting useless advice like, “Ice it! Ice it!” I still don’t know much about hockey, but I figure that I’ll learn more as I join others watching the televised games, thus helping rebuild the local fan base.

For a time, the Blackhawks were the only winning professional sports team in town. Yes, the Bears won the NFL championship in 1963, but—believe it—the title game wasn’t televised in Chicago and it was two decades before they won again. When the Cubs closed the upper deck in Wrigley Field for a lack of fans, the White Sox were stumbling after their first World Series appearance (1959) in more than 40 years, and no professional basketball team was interested in playing in Chicago, the Blackhawks were guardians of the city’s sports pride.

Maybe they will be again. They play their first regular season game Friday night, and I hope to catch at least some of it, on television.

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Dennis Byrne is a member of the Chicago Daily Observer Editorial Board