Patrick Kane Returns to Chicago

It happened. The Chicago Blackhawks signed Patrick Kane to a two year deal with a $8 million cap hit and a full no-move clause. Many fans are beyond thrilled to have 88 back in Chicago. But how much will Kane add to the Hawks?

Let's get my reaction out of the way first. The fan inside of me is thrilled. I can't wait to see Kane in a Blackhawks sweater again. But I don't thick this was the best move.

In his three years with the Detroit Red Wings, Patrick Kane scored 163 points in his 189 games. Last season, Kane scored 57 points (16 goals, 41 assists) in 67 games. For fancy stats, he posted a 50.32% Corsi and a 52.77% expected goals share (both at 5v5). His expected goals per 60 on the power play ranked 54th overall on a Red Wings power play that ranked 12th overall.

And it's on the power play for the Blackhawks that Kane will likely have the largest impact. Especially when Connor Bedard is healthy again and if Bowen Byram is everything Kyle Davidson hopes that he is.

But was this the right move for the Hawks.

Much like how the Byram trade in a vacuum makes the blue line better, Kane helps a squeamish looking top-six. No, Kane's contract won't hurt the Hawks' cap. But he's not the big top-six free agent signing that automatically makes this team a playoff team. 

If the Hawks do somehow make the playoffs, that's because a lot went right with the kids. 

Looking at this with rosy glasses, Kane will help Frank Nazar at 1C and Roman Kantserov (who we still don't know what exactly he is). 

Looking at this with a glass half empty, and this move really feels like something Kyle Davidson did to please the fans who are slowly growing more impatient with the rebuild. Last season, it was Davidson who firmly shut down any prospect of Kane returning to the Hawks. 

So, what gives? Why the turnaround?

I have a feeling there was some pressure from Danny Wirtz. Kane will fill the United Center, day one of the 2026-27 season. This is guaranteed to generate revenue that I have a feeling was going to take a slight dip with Bedard being absent the first month and a season that might not be too different from last year.

Either way, welcome back to Chicago, 88.

Lifting Weights: General Gainz

                                                 

Warning: This is going to be a long post filled with acronyms and jargon specific to the programs mentioned.

Recently, I wrote a couple of posts about Tactical Barbell (my progress and what was next). While Tactical Barbell III recently released, I saw that Cody Lefever released a new book called General Gainz (GG)—I shared an intro video here. This is a very interesting framework and I urge you to check it out if you're into strength training. 

Even though I'm still implementing Tactical Barbell (TB) on the cardio side of the house, I grew bored of TB's variety. Doing the same lifts three times a week got old... fast. So, I was looking to move back to a more classic approach and hit up Lefever's GZCL program (holy acronym's!). 

I ran GZCL a few years back when I was in Australia and loved the program. The only reason I stopped was because I needed to focus on running a fast three mile at the time. 

GG is the next evolution in Lefever's collection of programs. 

General Gainz

Unlike percentage based programs (think TB or 5/3/1), GG is purely performance based.  There are many, many different ways to change and adapt GG's framework. For example, I'm currently running a six-week intensification phase with an Upper/Lower split. Four days of weight training, two days of cardio, and one rest day. 

Below is an example of progression for my Upper 1 day (don't worry, I'll explain everything):

There are two phases: an intensity phase (strength) and an accumulation phase (hypertrophy). 

Each lifting day begins with one main lift (Tier 1 lift): Bench, Squat, Overhead Press, or Deadlift. You can choose which ever lift you want to train in your program. The working set in this template is a five rep max (5RM) followed by volume drop sets (VDS). The VDS is a minimum of five singles.

A VDS is the same weight as the main set, but lower volume. The book provides calculations for different RM's and when to add more sets. 

Following the Tier 1 lift is the Tier 2 lift. 

For my Tier 2 work, I'm using the same lifts as the Tier 1 work. Here's why. This is very similar to 5/3/1's Boring But Strong template, which I'm a fan of. I'm focusing on specificity because my goal is to get strong in those lifts.

Tier 2 work is a 10 RM followed by four sets of five reps (same weight), Again, the book details how to calculate it. When a 10 RM becomes hard (H), I still increase the weight, but now I'm looking for an 8 RM.

Tier 3 work is where most of the volume will be. These are usually "bodybuilding" type exercises and it's recommended to choose no more than four. I'm only starting with two Tier 3 lifts because I am coming off of a very low volume program. 

Now, let's talk progression.

Progression

During the intensity phase, weight is added to the bar each week (for both Tier 1 and Tier 2). When the last set is deemed "Hard" (based on Rate of Perceived Effort, or RPE), the following week is lowered to a 4RM. The same applies to the Tier 2 work (except from a 10 RM to an 8 RM, etc.). 

Because I'm adding weight, I'll be holding volume. No extra sets will be added. Again, just stressing that this is for this specific template. You can adjust progression based on goals.

For this intensification phase, I'll be adding weight until I find my 3RM at a hard effort, which could run further than six weeks.

For Tier 3 work, I'll be adding reps and sets to increase volume there (but not in the main work!).

Once I hit the accumulation phase, weight is not added to the bar on a weekly basis, but I increase the rep by one each week (which affects the VDS). 

The book has four actions that drive progression: Find, Push, Hold, and Extend. I recommend checking out the video I linked for a better explanation on those actions.

Conditioning

I'll be keeping conditioning simple and use TB's guidance in Mass Protocol. I'll be running Green during my intensity phase and Black during my accumulation phase. 

Basically, when I'm focusing on strength, the two conditioning sessions are 30 minute Long Steady State sessions (run, bike, stair climber).

When I add volume, those sessions drop to High Intensity Cardio sessions (intervals on the stair climber or treadmill for me). 

During both phases, conditioning is done two times a week on my non-lifting days. 

Looking Ahead

I've already been running this for a couple weeks and I LOVE it. Once I'm finished with this phase, I might add an accumulation phase, or run one of the templates from the book. Right now I'm focusing on getting strong in the main three lifts and slowly adding volume to my training. 

Again, this is very specific to me and my goals. If you actually read all of this and are interested, I recommend checking out the book. 

The 2026 Blackhawks Offseason Bananza

It's time for my annual Chicago Blackhawks offseason preview. 

Thanks to the Connor Bedard injury and the Bowen Byram trade, my passion for this team is at a low not felt in a while. It's like a dying flame spurred on by the embers of loyalty. I am not excited for the season to start, and that hurts to say as a Hawks fan. 

Bedard's injury really is the icing on the cake (a shit cake). With him being out until November (and that's not definite), this roster is going to look quite bleak. Here's what the forward projections are from The Athletic:

Tyler Bertuzzi — Frank Nazar — Roman Kantserov
Ryan Donato — Anton Frondell — Nick Lardis
Andrew Mangiapane  — Oliver Moore — Teuvo Teräväinen
Jordan Greenway — Ryan Greene — Cole Smith
Extra: Landon Slaggert 

An optimist might look at the opportunity for Frank Nazar to prove himself at center, which he did last season in the very low-calorie October games. Anton Frondell might make a nice impression, but that's doubtful given that he's very young. Roman Kantserov, despite how much Kyle Davidson wants us to believe in him, is a total unknown. 

The best case scenario is that the kids look excellent. And that's where there is a positive side to this. We get to see more of Nazar at 1C and another look at Frondell (who I think will be an excellent player). Kantserov could be something special too.

But I've said that at the start of every season for the past couple of years. There's potential in the kids and it could go well, or it could go badly.

The Byram trade is what it is. Davidson threw No. 1 defenseman money at an unproven No. 1 defenseman. Even if he hits I have major questions about the GM who once said that you find your No. 1 defenseman in the draft, not on the market. 

Regardless of Bedard being out or not, they still need top-six talent. Not unproven youth. Matthew Knies would have been my pick. Jason Robertson if that was ever a real possibility. But instead, the rumblings are of Patrick Kane making a possible return to Chicago. The nostalgic person in me would love this, but beyond that, I'm not so sure how much this helps Chicago (or Kane)... if it even happens. 

Anyway, that's my thoughts on this circus. I might expand more on the Byram stuff. I might not. Depending on my schedule for next season, I'll lay out expectations.  With school, work, and writing two books, I may have to really limit myself this fall. As for the summer, I might put out a couple of pieces expanding on the ideas mentioned above. 

The next time I speak about the Hawks I'll have an update on how I'll be covering them in the future.

The Vang: A Review

                                                             

Christopher Rowley's The Vang was cited as the inspiration for the Flood in Halo. I was incredibly excited to dig into this one, especially since I really enjoyed the first book in the series, Starhammer.

The Vang follows a wide cast of characters on the planet Saskatch, a remote colony filled with logging communities, drug runners, and a very corrupt capital city. In the local star system is a ship with two families trying to strike a fortune in mining. They discovered a floating alien object and well... that's how the Vang attempts to take over Saskatch. 

The Vang are a parasitic life from introduced at the end of Starhammer. They are sentient beings that can infect and take over other species as hosts. Their appearance mimics very close to how the Flood were eventually created:

Around the corner and into the passage sprang a bipedal being, barely recognizable as human. Sheaths of a shiny pink and gray material coated the arms, the chest, and lower body. The material was heavily ridged and wattled on the chest and torso.

The head was an obscenely distorted version of humanity. Orange flower things waved in front of a face like that of a man mixed with a greyhound. Under the chin hung a beard of pink polyps.

And here is some concept art for Halo of the Flood (human combat form):

Artist: Robert McLees

The book was a pretty fun read, although I wasn't a fan of the head hopping and the character names got confusing at times. For example, there's a scene where there's two characters with the same last name and their dialogue tags made it difficult to distinguish who was who. There was also some other parts that didn't sit with me well (without giving spoilers away, the lobster thing...). I honestly wished this book was longer so certain scenes got more developed. The beginning of the story was the strongest part of the novel and as the story progressed, things felt more rushed.

But, overall, this was a fun classic parasitic alien invasion lifeforms. It's violent, fast paced, and creepy.  This is one I'll definitely return to for inspiration in the future.

Lifting Weights: Intro to General Gainz

Happy Tuesday (or whenever). 

I'm currently doing a write up on a program that I created for myself using Cody Lefever's "General Gainz" framework. I'm a couple of weeks into it and I really love this so far. Before I post it—if you are one of the few that actually reads this stuff—check out the video below which explains some of the stuff I'll talk about. 

Lifting Weights: Tactical Barbell Part II

                                

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Tactical Barbell. I had planned to wrap up my current block of Operator and then begin their hypertrophy program.  But there was a problem. I wasn't excited about my next block. 

This week was supposed to be my 1RM test week, but I found a new training framework that I was too excited to try. I'll write more about that soon. 

I had been running TB since last September. I started with Base Building and followed that up with two 12 week blocks of Operator (alongside their Black conditioning protocol). The results were solid, as was expected. I've never had any issues running this program. I maintained 185 lbs while regaining strength and maintaining a conditioning base. Mission accomplished. 

The problem I have with this program is that lifting the same three big movements everyday was getting... dull. Mondays and Wednesdays were Bench/Squat/Weighted Pull-ups and Friday was Bench/Squat/Deadlift. That's also the beauty of this program. There's no accessory movements because you're kept fresh to focus on conditioning and lift heavy weights without working yourself into the ground. 

Their hypertrophy program looked more or less the same just with higher volume. And at that point, why not use a different program? I looked at 5/3/1 (another one of my beloveds) but felt the same way. Further, I feel like my numbers can be pushed. Because 5/3/1 and TB are both percentage based programs, I think this has the tendency for lifters, like me, to not push themselves as hard because they have to stay to a strict percentage.

For example, when I started this current block, I was squatting 275 for two reps with maybe one bad rep in reserve (this was coming off a long period of minimal weight training). Last week, I was squatting 285 for singles and felt like I had a lot of gas left in the tank (again, the whole point of the program).  

Instead of continuing with TB, I'll be following Cody Lefever's General Gainz (GG) framework. I'll discuss in a future post what that will entail but it aligns with my current goals a lot better than TB.  

I 100% recommend TB for those interested in conditioning and lifting heavy weights. But for now, I want to focus more on strength before I increase my volume. With GG provides. 

Gardener vs. Architect

Erebus is going to be my first novel. The process has been exhilarating to say the least. Because this is my first work of fiction, I've been playing around with different ways to write the story. Even once I'm finished, I don't think I'll know my exact approach to writing books. In fact, I have a strong feeling that'll change with each book I write. 

I think George R.R. Martin put it best when comparing the two approaches with "gardeners" and "architects." I'm definitely in the gardener category.  I wrote the first draft of Erebus from start to finish without any outlining. In between drafts, I created an outline based on what I wrote and already I am far from that outline. 

And that's the thing with outlines, they are meant to be broken. For me, it's a useful tool to see how scenes are structured. But by no means am I married to them. New characters have already found their way into the stories, old ones have vanished into the background. It's exciting seeing a story take on a life of its own. 

Not everything is seat of the pants writing (although that first draft very much felt like that). I have goals. Things are placed with intent and I'm kind of just seeing where the story takes it. If it doesn't work, well, I end up revising. And that's okay. I've already had to rewrite the first two chapters of the second draft because a character found their way into the story and created a sub-plot that just didn't fit the rest of the story. 

Anyway, I found that very interesting from Martin, and considering I'm giving A Song of Ice and Fire another read, I wanted to share this.