Blackhawks Playing Cards

Ace of Hearts: I chose Patrick Kane as the Ace of Hearts, because he’s been referred to as an ace, and because of his "boom, heartbreaker" goal celebration. The pistol was an allusion to Kane being called a sniper.

King of Spades: In card games that rank suit, the trump suit is usually spades. So Jonathan Toews, Captain of the Blackhawks, was either going to be the ace or king of the suit. In the Paris pattern, the King of Spades is the biblical King David. Jonathan and David are heroic figures who formed a covenenant of friendship recorded in the Book of Samuel -- Toews' own younger brother is coincidentally called David. So there was that tangential affinity. But more importantly the captain is the leader of a team, so making him king of his suit ultimately made sense. That’s aditionally why he has a crown on his card.

Ace of Diamonds: It was actually Virginia Yarboro's suggestion to make Marian Hossa the Ace of Diamonds. The lightning bolt was a reference to the whole demi-god Hossa thing as it played out in the media a few years back, after Kris Versteeg's quote to Mark Lazerus. I’ve seen him referred to as Thor, or as the son of zeus, both thunder gods.

Jack of Diamonds: Making Brandon Saad the Jack, because he and Hossa played on a line with Toews for most of the Blackhawks last cup winning season, and because his style of play has been compared to Hossa’s. Finding a symbol for Saader was hard. His former nickname manchild doesn’t really lend itself to anything. Ultimately he got a fireball, because I hoped that’s what he would be now that he was back on the team.

Queen of clubs: Cory Crawford is the Queen of Clubs. All of defense is in clubs. In mysticism, the queen of clubs is the card of intuition. Given some of Crawford’s heart-stopping saves, it made sense to me.

2 and 7 of clubs: I just used Keith and Seabrook's jersey numbers for this. Duncan Keith has the tooth on his card for all the teeth he lost in the first cup win (that he then gave to Seabrook?), and Seabrook has the shield because Toews once said that Seabrook always had his back.

The Joker: Patrick Sharp, as such a noted practical joker, was obviously going to be the joker card. He’s in a suit rather than in a uniform, because the joker is often the wild card. Unlike the other face cards, the joker does not have an industry standard appearance, and often lacks the reflected or symmetrical aspect of all the other cards.