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Still, with the team trailing 1-0 during the first intermission of this sixth game of the finals, coach Rudy Pilous had to give his players a pep talk.

"I just told them," he said later, "tonight's game was worth $1,000 to the winner, and the loser gets nothing."

For the rest of the game, the Hawks set about burying the Wings. The third period became an exhibition in championship hockey, with three Hawks scoring. (Actually, each Hawk received an extra $1,750 for winning. The Red Wings received $750 per man.)

Meanwhile, Jim Norris, the team's co-owner, refused to watch the final period.

"Our nerves were a little on edge," he told a Tribune reporter. "I didn't want to watch it after we got two ahead."

It seemed that this would be the first in a series of Cup titles for the Hawks.

But the city would have to wait 49 years to celebrate again.

In 1967, the Hawks finished a glorious regular season first overall, only to fall in the semifinals. Phil Esposito was traded. Hull left for Winnipeg. The Hawks were foiled twice — in 1971 and 1973 — by the Canadiens in the final round. The team returned to the finals in 1992, but four games later, the Penguins raised the Cup.

On a mid-April night in 1961, however, the future appeared to offer endless possibilities. But there was no celebrating with the fans on that Sunday night. The Hawks' flight home from Detroit was canceled because of the snowstorm.

"The team celebration was extremely mild," the Tribune reported, "confined to beer in the Metropolitan airport cocktail lounge."

Chicago Tribune LOADED: 06.28.2013

682676 Chicago Blackhawks

1934 Black Hawks: Triumph then tragedy

Tribune report

9:40 PM CDT, June 27, 2013

In the 1933-34 season, the Black Hawks still were relatively new on the scene. They played their first season in 1926-27 and moved into the Chicago Stadium in 1929. The Hawks had only modest success, losing in the finals to the Canadiens in 1931.

Expectations weren't high for the 1934 playoffs. The team had finished only two games above .500 and scored a mere 88 goals in 48 games. However, with goalie Chuck Gardiner, scoring wasn't a necessity as the playoffs began.

After eliminating the Montreal Maroons in the first round, the Hawks were prohibitive underdogs in the best-of-five finals against the powerful Red Wings.

"They will play the one team in the league which appeared to exercise some strange power over them," Tribune columnist Charles Bartlett wrote before the series started.

Then the Hawks pulled a stunner by winning the first two games on the road, putting them one victory from the Stanley Cup. Detroit rallied to win Game 3 in Chicago.

But on April 10, 1934, more than 18,000 fans jammed the Stadium to watch Gardiner stop the Red Wings. Finally, at 30:05 of overtime, Harold "Mush" March scored to give the Hawks a 1-0 victory and their first title.

Bartlett wrote: "March, a shrimp of a hocky player who matches his 140 pounds against all the heavyweights in the game, is going home with the most valuable puck in existence this morning. He seized the little black disc out of the Detroit cage last night at the Chicago Stadium after having blazed past Wilfred Cude, the Red Wing goalie, to give Chicago the world's championship and the Stanley Cup for the first time in their eight-year career."

(March had better luck retrieving the puck than Patrick Kane did after his overtime goal to win the series in 2010.)

Chicago fans embraced their new champions. But it didn't last long, as tragedy hit the team a couple of months after winning their title.

Gardiner, who registered five shutouts during the playoffs, was the star. However, he exhibited erratic behavior during the drive to the title. The mood swings were attributed to nerves. He even was sent to Milwaukee for a day to rest before shutting out the Red Wings.

It turns out Gardiner wasn't suffering from nerves. Shortly after returning to his home in Winnipeg, he went into a coma, the victim of a brain tumor. On June 13, just more than two months after leading the Hawks to the title, Gardiner died at 29.

Chicago Tribune LOADED: 06.28.2013

682677 Chicago Blackhawks

1938 Black Hawks: 1 of most improbable winners in NHL history

Tribune report

9:40 PM CDT, June 27, 2013

When the Black Hawks clinched the 1938 title in Chicago, Lord Stanley's Cup wasn't in the house.

Frank Calder, the first president of the NHL, thought so little of the 1937-38 Hawks that, prior to the Cup finals against the heavily favored Toronto Maple Leafs, he had the Cup dispatched from Detroit — where the Red Wings had won it the previous season — to Toronto and didn't bother to re-route it to Chicago even as the Hawks had a chance to clinch the series at home.

What's more, the '38 team is one of the most improbable winners in NHL history.

Those Hawks were the lowest scoring team in the league and had backed into the playoffs with a record of 14-25-9. The team had an unheard-of eight American-born players and was coached by Bill Stewart, the first American to steward a team to the Cup.

And the clincher? The Hawks' starting goaltender for Game 1 against the Maple Leafs was Alfie Moore, a member of the Leafs' farm team, the Pittsburgh Hornets.

The Hawks' No. 1 goalie, Mike Karakas, had a broken toe, and it wasn't clear until the afternoon of the first game he would be unable to play. Backup Paul Goodman was at his home in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and couldn't make it to Toronto on time. Stewart tried to bring in a ringer, Davey Kerr, the standout goalie for the Rangers. But Conn Smythe, Toronto's legendary manager, protested and the league nixed the plan.

Finally Smythe agreed to let Stewart use his minor league goalie.

But time was short, and Hawks left winger Johnny Gottselig, who knew Moore, found him at a tavern, already several drinks for the worse.

"He'd had about 10 or a dozen drinks," Gottselig said, recalling the incident years later in an interview with John Devaney, author of "The Stanley Cup." "We put some coffee into him and put him under the shower. By game time, he was in pretty good shape."

The Hawks stunned the Leafs 3-1 and even won over Leafs fans, who gave Moore a standing ovation as he was carried off the ice by his teammates.

Smythe was irate to have been "beaten by a hungover, minor league goalie," and refused to allow Moore to play in Game 2. Moore was given $300 and a gold watch for his efforts but only played in three more NHL games in his career.

Moore's Game 2 replacement, Goodman, promptly was burned for five goals in a 5-1 loss.

The Hawks devised a way to fit Karakas' skate with a steel guard to protect his broken toe and he came back to lead the team to a 2-1 victory in Chicago in front of 18,496, the largest-ever crowd to watch a hockey game at that time. Practically overnight, the underestimated team had become the toast of the town.

But Calder wasn't buying into the Cinderella story, and the Cup remained in Toronto as the Hawks clinched the title with a 4-1 victory in Game 4 of the best-of-five series.

Meanwhile Karakas was keen to cash in on a bet he had made with teammate Roger Jenkins, who had told him, "If we win the Cup, I'll push you down State Street in a wheelbarrow."

When Jenkins made good on the bet, a huge crowd turned up to view the spectacle, paralyzing traffic in the Loop.

Chicago Tribune LOADED: 06.28.2013

682678 Chicago Blackhawks

Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville says he’d like to work out a contract extension

BY MARK LAZERUS June 27, 2013 10:15PM

Updated: June 27, 2013 11:09PM

While his players spent much of the last two days on one of the most memorable bar crawls in Chicago history, coach Joel Quenneville spent much of his time cleaning up his yard, which was toilet-papered by giddy Blackhawks fans.

“It’s progressed,” Quenneville said, talking about his yard in the same nebulous way he talks about player injuries. “A never-ending project.”

Quenneville has entrenched himself as a member of the Chicago community and hopes to keep it that way. His contract expires after next season, and he said Thursday that he’d very much like to work out an extension.

“Absolutely, we love it here,” he said. “We don’t want to go anywhere. This is a special place to be from all perspectives. Being a coach in this hockey environment, this organization, with the players we have — I was very fortunate to walk [through] the door five years ago with a team that was sitting on gold. Had a lot of fun over those five years.”

Quenneville leads all active coaches in regular-season wins (660) and games coached (1,211), as well as playoff wins (88) and games coached (162). He’s now the 14th coach to win multiple Stanley Cups. And just a year ago, his job was in jeopardy after a second straight first-round playoff exit.

“You can’t worry about that stuff in this business,” he said. “I’m sure there were a number of coaches in a comparable boat. That’s the life and challenges of being a coach. I was never worried about that.”

Quenneville received an extension after the 2010 championship, when he also had one year left on his deal, and general manager Stan Bowman said Quenneville is very much in the Hawks’ future plans.

“Like we spoke of a couple of years ago at this time, we want to keep Joel,” Bowman said. “He’s done a tremendous job leading the team. There’s no one else I’d rather have coaching this group than Joel. He’s demonstrated a great ability to understand what it takes to win. He’s got a proven track record, and I think our players really respond to him.”

Chicago Sun Times LOADED: 06.28.2013

682679 Chicago Blackhawks

Marian Hossa played on, but he might need back surgery

BY MARK LAZERUS June 27, 2013 10:15PM

Updated: June 27, 2013 11:09PM

There wasn’t much Marian Hossa felt he could do with a disc problem in his back rendering his foot numb, but in the Stanley Cup Final, that wasn’t going to stop him from trying.

“I don’t know if I was too effective,” Hossa said.

“I was just limping on the ice. I didn’t have as much confidence because everyone around me was much faster. As soon as I got the puck, I wasn’t confident to do the things I normally do. It frustrated me. But the coaches told me to play my game defensively, that it was going to help us, so I just tried to stick with it.”

While former Hawks star Tony Amonte questioned Hossa’s toughness after the big Slovak sat out Game 3, it turns out Hossa might need surgery to repair the damage in his back.

“I may need surgery or another shot,” Hossa said. “After this, I’ll talk to [team doctor Michael Terry] and try to make the best decision.”

The injuries the Hawks played through during the playoffs continued to come to light during Thursday’s locker-clean-out day.

The sprained knee Bryan Bickell suffered in Game 5 against Los Angeles was bad enough that he wondered if he’d play in the Final at all. Dave Bolland was still feeling the effects of the groin injury suffered late in the regular season and added a wrist injury during the playoffs.

Michal Handzus declined to go into detail, but coach Joel Quenneville said he had a wrist injury, among others.

And Andrew Shaw was playing with a broken rib suffered during the first period of Game 7 of the Detroit series.

“Couple of cross-checks in front of the net just caught me in the wrong spot,” Shaw said. “Just a hockey play.”

Other than Hossa, only Bickell said surgery was possible, though he was “80 percent” sure he wouldn’t need it.

Meanwhile, Boston’s Patrice Bergeron has been in the hospital since Game 6 ended with various injuries, including a punctured lung that he played through.

Chicago Sun Times LOADED: 06.28.2013

682680 Chicago Blackhawks

Celebrating can be exhausting for Blackhawks

BY MARK LAZERUS June 27, 2013 10:15PM

Updated: June 27, 2013 11:09PM

Patrick Kane spent 12 hours on Wednesday getting to and from New York for a six-minute interview with David Letterman. There are pictures floating around the Internet of Kane partying at a bar with a unicorn head on (“That wasn’t me,” a smiling Kane said after a long pause) and video of Jonathan Toews crowd-surfing at another bar (“That wasn’t me,” a smiling Toews said after a long pause). Most of the playoff beards are gone, but a few hangover shadows were evident Thursday morning.

“I haven’t slept today,” Marian Hossa said with a smirk. “Don’t tell this to my wife, please.”

Friday’s fun will be a little tamer — but a lot louder. The Hawks will enjoy their second championship parade in four years, riding double-decker buses from the United Center to Grant Park’s Hutchinson Field. The parade starts at Des Plaines and Washington at 10:30, and the rally at Hutchinson Field starts around 11.

“I think it’s going to be even bigger than the last one,” Bryan Bickell said. “That’s what I’ve been hearing. I don’t know how much you can top the last one, it was outstanding. It’s going to be a great experience I’ll never forget.”

The whole whirlwind celebration is like that, even if it takes a toll at the end of a grueling postseason.

“We’ll enjoy it for a little bit here,” Kane said. “I’m excited to get back home for summer and just relax. The last few days have been almost more tiring than the playoffs.”

O captain

Before the Hawks took the ice for their morning skate before Game 6 in Boston, Toews pulled Michal Handzus and Jamal Mayers aside and told them that if the Hawks won that night, he’d be handing the Stanley Cup first to Handzus, then to Mayers — two veterans who played a combined 29 seasons before becoming champions.

Mayers, who didn’t play in the playoffs but played a key role as a behind-the-scenes leader, said it was a classy move by a great leader.

“It’s just a testament to the type of leader he is, and person, to have the foresight to have that perspective,” Mayers said. “He’s turned into an unbelievable leader. . . . It reminds me of what people used to say about [Mark ] Messier.”

Great moment

Dave Bolland said it still hasn’t sunk in that he scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal.

“I think it’s still just roaming around in the air that I scored,” he said. “I look back at it and still can’t believe it. It’s a kid’s dream to score that goal. And I did it.”

Chicago Sun Times LOADED: 06.28.2013

682681 Chicago Blackhawks

Blackhawks will retool, not rebuild this offseason

BY MARK LAZERUS June 27, 2013 9:59PM

Updated: June 27, 2013 10:46PM

Stan Bowman took the first step toward keeping the 2013 Stanley Cup-champion Blackhawks largely intact Thursday, announcing that he put defenseman Steve Montador and forward Rostislav Olesz on waivers. If they go unclaimed, as expected, the Hawks will use their two compliance buyouts — an element of the new collective-bargaining agreement designed to allow teams to shed unwanted contracts and get under the lowered salary cap next season — on the two veterans. They combined to make more than $6 million this season, despite not playing a game in the NHL.

With several players due for raises, and Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews due for contract extensions next summer, it’ll take some work to get the Hawks under the $64.3 million cap. Not everyone will be back, but the carnage won’t be anywhere close to the purge that took place after the 2010 championship, when more than half the team departed.

“There shouldn’t be too many changes,” Patrick Kane said. “Looking back to 2010, you had to win it that year because the next year, everyone was going to be gone. This year, there shouldn’t be too many changes.”

The Hawks’ biggest concern is re-signing Bryan Bickell. To do that, they might have to move a piece of their core. Dave Bolland — who scored the Cup-winning goal in Game 6 at Boston but is slated to make $3.375 million next season — is a likely candidate to be on the trading block with the draft coming up Sunday.

“It’s the NHL, and trades happen, but I’d love to be back here,” Bolland said. “I love Chicago.”

Everyone does these days. But who will stay and who will go? Here’s a quick look:

Hometown discount for Bickell?

With nine goals and eight assists in the playoffs — all while playing a strong physical game — big Bryan Bickell assured himself of a hefty raise this summer as an unrestricted free agent. After making just $600,000 this season, the 6-4, 223-pound power forward could command $3 million a season. But Bickell said Thursday that some things are more important than money and that his agent was already in talks with the Hawks.

“You’ve got to do what makes you happy,” he said. “I know there are a lot of good teams around this league, and a lot of teams you won’t have as much fun [with] as if I stayed here. This is a great city, I enjoy it here, I got drafted here, this is a second home to me. We’re going to work on something, and hopefully it works out for the best.”

He also said he’d like the chance to see what he could do in a full season on a line with Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane, with whom he had excellent chemistry late in the playoffs.

When asked if all that meant he’d take a hometown discount to stay with the Hawks, Bickell replied, “Definitely.”Holding steady with Leddy

Defenseman Nick Leddy played less than 13 total minutes in the last three games of the Stanley Cup Final, but that won’t be how his Hawks career ends. The speedy 22-year-old defenseman is a restricted free agent, but Bowman said the Hawks will match any offer sheet that comes his way.

“We’re excited about his future,” Bowman said. “He’s taken steps every year, and I expect next year to be another one.”

Said coach Joel Quenneville: “I think we ended it on a positive note. With Nick’s situation, be excited where you’re going to be at going forward and keep getting better.”

Leddy said the playoff run was still a valuable experience.

“You learn things every year, game in and game out,” Leddy said. “I didn’t play a lot, but we won the Stanley Cup and it’s all about the team. It’s very exciting [that the Hawks want him back]. The city’s unbelievable, and the fan base is, bar none, the best.”

What’s your vector, Viktor?

Another player who saw his ice time decrease in the playoffs is winger Viktor Stalberg, who certainly sounded Thursday like a man who had played his last game in a Hawks uniform. Twice benched by Quenneville during the postseason — at the start of series against the Red Wings and Bruins — Stalberg said he wants a chance to play as a top-six forward getting major minutes. That’s unlikely to happen with the Hawks.

“Over the last three years, I showed I deserve to play maybe more than at times I got an opportunity to here,” Stalberg said. “That’s how it is. You’re on one of the best teams, and you have some of the best players in the world in front of you. That’s great, but maybe at some point in your career you want to see what else is out there, and what role you can get, and see how good you can allow yourself to be.”

Stalberg also said “I love it here” and wouldn’t rule out a return completely. He has yet to speak with his agent or Bowman.

“I didn’t take the conversation last night at the bar, let’s put it that way,” he said laughing.

Weighing their options

Marcus Kruger, Michal Handzus and Michal Rozsival have expressed interest in returning to the Hawks. Kruger is a restricted free agent while Handzus and Rozsival are unrestricted.

“I’d love to stay here. I love this place, I love this organization,” Kruger said. “We’ll see if they want me to be here. I’m so glad I got the chance to play here with these guys in this organization. They’ve been top-class in everything.”

After going 17-1, goaltender Ray Emery could command more than the Hawks want to pay a backup. The Hawks also signed Finnish star goaltender Antti Raanta, who could compete for a spot right away.

“Hopefully, he can adjust to North America quickly,” Bowman said. “Something that takes a little bit of time. We’re not trying to rush him into anything.”

Jamal Mayers is considering going out on top, having finally won a Stanley Cup at 38.

“Climbing the mountain and seeing over the top may have changed things a little bit for me,” Mayers said. “That’ll play itself out in the next couple of weeks. But if I do walk away, I can do that as a champion. Not many can say that.”

Chicago Sun Times LOADED: 06.28.2013

682682 Chicago Blackhawks

The Fratellis pumped up over the popularity of the band’s ‘Chelsea Dagger’

BY MIKE THOMAS June 27, 2013 10:15PM

Updated: June 28, 2013 2:26AM

Here’s the thing about Baz Fratelli: He’s not much for hockey.

Doesn’t hate it, but it’s merely fifth on his list of favorite sports. First comes soccer, followed by boxing, martial arts and tennis. Then hockey.

And here’s the amusing irony: Since 2008, the Chicago Blackhawks have blasted the rowdy chorus to “Chelsea Dagger” — a single from the 2006 debut album “Costello Music,” by the Scottish band The Fratellis — to pump up thousands of fans at the United Center.

But don’t get him wrong: Fratelli is immensely pleased that the tune, which was written by lead singer Jon Fratelli and has sold better outside America than in it, has gotten so much stateside exposure the past few years, thanks largely to Chicago’s 2010 and 2013 Stanley Cup victories.

“To find out it had branched out overseas was fantastic, really,” says Fratelli, the band’s bassist. “And it seems to just be going absolutely insane now. So it’s all good; we’re pleased to be a part of it.”

Other sports teams — including Fratelli’s hometown soccer crew from Glasgow, the Celtic Football Club — use the upbeat anthem as well.

“It’s always a surprise to me when anybody shows an interest and adopts something of yours for something of that sort of magnitude.”

As a bonus, the Hawks’ latest Cup coup comes at an ideal time.

“It certainly sets things up nicely for us to get back out there and start touring again,” Fratelli says of his group, which formed in 2005, broke up in the spring of 2010 (not long before the Hawks began competing in the Stanley Cup semifinals) and reassembled around this time last year.

Since the band hasn’t gigged together in America since the Blackhawks adopted “Chelsea,” Fratelli and his mates have yet to experience a live, local reaction to it. Jon Fratelli got a solo taste when he played the song at Metro in June 2010.

“It’ll be interesting to come back now that the song’s had that much exposure. It’ll also be interesting to go to some other cities and see if they actually hate us,” Fratelli says with a laugh.

He discovered hockey around age 10 through relatives in America, “ironically enough, from the Boston area. I don’t think they’ll be talking to me much.”

“And obviously, being Scotsmen, we were attracted to the guys fighting.”

Despite the song’s popularity, Fratelli and his mates haven’t cleaned up financially. Far from it. Royalties can take many months to roll in, he explains, and so far there’s not much rolling. In another year, he allows, things might be different.

Beyond its surprising status in the sports world and its money-generating potential, what does Fratelli think of “Chelsea” on a purely musical level?

“It took on a life of its own very early on, so I guess when a song does that, you simply don’t own it anymore; you don’t think of it as your song,” he says. “That song, particularly. People will chant it while they wait for us to come on [stage] sometimes, or between each song. Sometimes it’s the only track that people want to hear, but that depends where you are.