While it's interesting and exciting to see the Washington Capitals elevate themselves to the point where they have the Greatest Games collection, it was encouraging to see that the Chicago Blackhawks' fans would be treated to a similar collection. This team is experiencing its own resurgence after years of futility, though circumstances were a little different than they were for the Capitals.

Chicago was one of the Original Six--the first six teams in the National Hockey League, along with the New York Rangers, Detroit Red Wings, Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens and Boston Bruins. The Hawks have been the least productive of their five peers, winning three Stanley Cup championships, with the last being in 1961. It's not been due to lack of talent, though. In fact, Chicago has had Hall-of-Fame players like Stan Mikita, Glenn Hall and Bobby Hull. But that talent never completely crossed the threshold of collective success. Then, things got bad.

The Hawks played well through the years, even appearing in the Stanley Cup Finals several times since 1961, but you'd never know it. Under the ownership of Bill Wirtz, Hawks fans didn't get many chances to see the games on TV (Wirtz thought this would be 'cheating' the season ticket holders), and the fans were rapidly becoming alienated under these policies. As recently as 2005-06, the team was withering on the vine. However, when Wirtz succumbed to cancer in 2007, his son took over and things began to pick up. Hawks games soon aired on television and they began marketing with (and to) other Chicago sports fans. They had also begun building the foundation of a solid team. With the addition of youngsters Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews and Duncan Keith, the franchise appears poised for a successful multi-year Stanley Cup runs.

And with this up-and-coming roster of talent in place, the team (and the League) believed that it was best to release a boxed set of great moments and classic games for the Hawks fan in your life. The list of games in this six-disc collection includes the following:

2/24/1994 - Jeremy Roenick gets a hat trick (and then some) in a rout of the Winnipeg Jets.

4/23/1994 - Game 3 of the Western Conference quarter-finals sees Tony Amonte hang on to beat Toronto 5-4.

6/8/1995 - Denis Savard scores two goals as the Hawks stave off elimination by Detroit in the Western Conference Finals with a 5-2 score.

4/18/2009 - Toews scores two in a rally by the Hawks to beat the Calgary Flames 3-2 in Game 2 of the Western Conference quarter-finals.

5/11/2009 - Kane nets a three-goal hat trick en route to a 7-5 Hawks win over the Vancouver Canucks and their first Conference Finals in almost 15 years.

This is the "Memorable Moments" part of the disc, where Hall, Hull, Savard, Tony Esposito and many others have their retirement ceremonies and (in some cases) their jersey numbers retired to the rafters.

Now, the Capitals and their curious game selections have been chalked up to a lack of a decent archive function, hence a set that is heavy on Alexander Ovechkin. But the Blackhawks with their history? It's all limited to the last 14 minutes of Game 6 of the 1961 final against Detroit. Sure, it's got interviews and such, but for all the knocks on the timing of the Caps recorded history only starting when Ovechkin came to town, did Chicago really not collect ANY form of material on their team for the first seven decades of existence? That's a huge disappointment, considering how much other video there is of Hawks legends playing in other games.

Additionally, the games that are on here are not all that special. Sure, the Kane and Toews efforts are decent though hardly transcendent, and while it's nice to see the older Hawks players (including the old Jets team) in action, there's an increasing (and disturbing) lack of recognition of your roots, instead paying more attention to guys who've played in the last couple of years. Come on NHL, old guys buy DVDs too; it's about time you recognized this.

All in all, fans of the Blackhawks should exercise a little care when it comes to this "Great Moments and Classic Games" collection, as it's some of both but hardly a true representation of the Chicago Blackhawks' lineage and tradition. Hopefully when the Caps' resurgence presumably brings another multi-disc set, another collection of Blackhawks moments will be soon to follow.

The games are presented in full frame with the exception of last year's, which come to you in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen. The games look fine and are accurately reproduced, and the '61 game is probably from someone who donated it to the team for use in the DVD or something. But any flaws in the material appear to be inherent in the source, so there's no griping to be had.

Two-channel Dolby stereo, even on the newer games. Honestly, there's nothing to see here, so move right along.

Nary a thing.

The Great Moments and Classic Games of the Chicago Blackhawks is a well-intentioned set and there's at least a little bit of work put into it, but once you get past the initial joy of seeing this disc, Hawks fans will realize it's barren, similar to most of the other NHL collections these days. That said, Hawks fans are sure to like it during the playoff lull.