Stanley Cup, some Blackhawks to appear at Chicago's 46th Pride Parade

Members of the Chicago Blackhawks Jersey and the Stanley Cup will make appearances at the 46th annual Chicago Pride Parade on Sunday.

The NHL champions are scheduled to ride on the WGN Radio float along with their prize, according to the parade’s website and organizers.


Sunday would mark the second time the Stanley Cup joins the Chicago Pride Parade celebrations. In 2010, the Blackhawks showed up with their prize for the first time in the parade’s history.

The parade kicks off at noon Sunday, and WGN Radio’s float is tentatively No. 17 in the parade’s lineup.

Jonathan Toews’ value goes far beyond the scoresheet

LAS VEGAS — If Jonathan Toews Jersey really wanted to, he could make a run at the Hart Trophy as the league’s most valuable player. He’s got the offensive skills to create scoring chances, he has the vision to dole out goals from behind the opposing net, and he has the grit to fight for and finish off the greasy goals. If he wanted more points, he could get more points.

Of course, the irony is, that would actually make him less valuable to the Blackhawks.

“It’s just being the player that they need him to be every night, regardless of what he thinks or what anybody else thinks,” Montreal defenseman P.K. Subban said. “He just does what the coaching staff and the organization need him to do. And that makes a player special, because it’s a difficult thing to do. It’s a team-oriented skill that you need to have. It can’t be overlooked. And I think he’s a team-first guy and it shows, it shows in his play.”

It’s not his point total that makes Toews so good, and so valuable. Even with 506 of them in just 565 games, that’s not why he’s considered by so many to be one of the two or three best players in the NHL. It’s his defense. It’s his savvy. It’s his prowess in the faceoff circle, in the corners, in his own zone. It’s his penalty killing and his power-play work. It’s his willingness to sacrifice his individual stats for team success.

Barely a week after captaining the Hawks to the Stanley Cup for the third time in six seasons, Toews is in Las Vegas for Wednesday’s NHL Awards. He’s a finalist for two very Toews-like awards — the Selke Trophy, awarded to the league’s top defensive forward; and the Mark Messier Leadership Award, given out by the famed Oilers and Rangers captain for the intangibles that have made Toews famous. The Hart Trophy likely will go to Montreal goaltender Carey Price, who’s a finalist alongside Washington’s Alex Ovechkin and the Islanders’ John Tavares.

Tavares lost in the first round. Price lost in the second round. Ovechkin lost in the second, too.

“You can talk about the trophies of the regular season all day long, but at the end of the day, he won the trophy that all the players want,” Pittsburgh defenseman Kris Letang said. “I don’t think he really worries about that. I think he’s pretty happy with his three Stanley Cups instead of three Hart trophies.”

Toews has three Stanley Cups. Two Olympic gold medals. Two World Junior championships. One world championship. One Conn Smythe Trophy. One Selke Trophy.

He’s 27.

Blackhawks enter ‘summer of hell’; how deep will cuts go?

As the champagne finally dries up and the last pieces of confetti are vacuumed, attention turns to what, exactly, the Chicago Blackhawks Jersey might look like in 2015-16.

The Blackhawks have $64.05 million committed to the cap next season. That’s a lot.

They have 11 skaters under contract. That’s … not a lot. 

"It kind of reminds me going into that summer of 2010," coach Joel Quenneville told the Chicago Tribune, in a comment that could send shivers down the spines of Blackhawks fans. "We knew we were going to have to lose a significant amount of our team, (but) losing almost half of it that summer, I didn't know we were going to lose that many. This year, I don't anticipate that amount. We'll see what happens, but certainly the nature of the game, this era, change is all part of it."

Blackhawks enjoy surprising Stanley Cup fanfare around Chicago

Chicago Blackhawks Jersey forward Patrick Sharp got a taste of what movie stars must feel like at times.

Sharp held a get-together for his teammates and the Stanley Cup on the roof of his North Side home prior to attending the Chicago Cubs’ game on Tuesday night. Fans and media hung around outside for a glimpse of the players and the storied trophy, and the group was also viewed on from above.

“The helicopters weren’t so bad until I saw how much they really zoomed in,” Sharp said on Wednesday. “Makes you wonder if you’re going to be sun tanning out there or something. There was also a little drone. I don’t know where that came from, but it was buzzing around our heads, pretty close to us.”

Only a few days have passed since the Blackhawks began their Stanley Cup celebration, but they already have their share of stories.

Blackhawks defenseman Johnny Oduya’s abs become an Internet sensation after someone snapped a picture of him with his shirt off at a club on Monday night.

Blackhawks seize their third Stanley Cup in six seasons

They did it under the five Stanley Cup banners hanging from the rafters.

They did it under the banners honoring legends Glenn Hall, Pierre Pilote, Keith Magnuson, Bobby Hull, Denis Savard, Stan Mikita and Tony Esposito.

The Blackhawks did it at home.

For the first time in 77 years, the Hawks celebrated winning a Stanley Cup in Chicago after they topped the Lightning 2-0 in Game 6 on Monday night before a crowd of 22,424 delirious fans at the United Center.

Duncan Keith Jersey opened the scoring, Patrick Kane had a goal and an assist and goaltender Corey Crawford made 25 saves to help lift the Hawks to their third Cup in the last six seasons.

"This one is special because we did it in front of our fans," said Keith, who was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the postseason. "Third time winning the Cup in six years, that's unreal."

It's a feeling that never gets old, even for those who will be adding a third ring to their collections.

"It's the greatest feeling in the world," coach Joel Quenneville said. "Once you do it once, you can't wait to do it again. It was special (Monday night) doing it in front of our own fans. The building was electric. The town had a buzz to it."

The Hawks reeled off three consecutive victories to capture the best-of-seven series 4-2 and finished the season a perfect 33-0 when leading in games after two periods.

While 2010 and '13 were amazing moments, to win it at home in front of fans who seemed intent on losing their voices from the opening notes of the national anthem until each Hawks player hoisted the Cup over his head made this one all the more cherished.

Blackhawks beat Lightning, 2-1, now one win from Stanley Cup title

The Stanley Cup will be in the house Monday at the United Center, and the Chicago Blackhawks Jersey will have a chance to make the hallowed trophy feel at home there for a while.

Center Antoine Vermette, a late-season acquisition who was a healthy scratch early in the Western Conference final, converted a rebound two minutes into the third period Saturday and Chicago goaltender Corey Crawford held off a furious late push by the Tampa Bay Lightning as the Blackhawks clawed out a 2-1 victory at Amalie Arena. With a 3-2 series lead they're in position to win the Cup on Monday for the third time in six seasons.

“It's great. We're excited about the opportunity,” Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews said. “It's what we've worked for.”


In the fifth consecutive Cup Final game decided by one goal, the Blackhawks' defense was formidable, led by the tireless Niklas Hjalmarsson and his game-high seven blocks. And their support players came through again, with Vermette recording the winning goal for the second time in the Final and third time in this playoff run.

“Whether we're one win away or 15 wins away, you come in with that belief and you know what your team is capable of,” Toews said. “If anything, you don't want to underachieve. You want to get the most out of each other and find a way to come together as a group and give yourself a chance to be here. I think that's what everyone in this room wants.”

The Blackhawks can win the Cup at home for the first time since 1938, when they completed a best-of-five series against the Toronto Maple Leafs at the old Chicago Stadium. They won at Detroit in 1961, at Philadelphia in 2010 and at Boston in 2013. A seventh game, if necessary, would be played Wednesday in Tampa.

This is when their experience will come into play, where the core group of what is the closest thing to a dynasty the NHL has seen in the salary-cap era must take charge. The Lightning came back from a 3-2 deficit in the first round, against Detroit, and Coach Jon Cooper remains confident that his team can do that again.

“People can't sit here and say, ‘Well, the inexperienced Lightning.' I think we're the gamer Lightning,” he said. “These guys have gamed out these playoffs, and I expect nothing less in Game 6 in Chicago.”

Less than a minute after Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov suffered an undisclosed injury when he tripped over Crawford and collided with the post in the first period, Chicago capitalized on a misplay by Tampa Bay goalie Ben Bishop. The puck had been dumped into Tampa Bay's zone and defenseman Victor Hedman was preparing to play it, but Bishop came out of his net and to the left faceoff circle, where he collided with Hedman. Both went down, leaving an empty net for Patrick Sharp Jersey to score at 6:11, his first goal in 14 games.

Bishop, who missed Game 4 because of an undisclosed injury, was slow to get up but stayed in the game. Bishop made 27 saves, to 30 by Crawford.

“I was just trying to force the play, skate as fast as I can up the ice and apply some pressure,” Sharp said.

Tampa Bay pulled even at 10:53 of the second period, on a fine setup from Jason Garrison to Valtteri Filppula, who scored from a tough angle. But Antoine Vermette Jersey was a difference-maker again and Crawford stopped 15 shots in the third period to send the Blackhawks back home with a chance to claim the Cup Monday.

It's so close they can taste it, but they're experienced enough not to start counting Champagne bubbles yet.


“You go through the ups and downs every playoff run. It didn't start off the way I wanted but I was able to stay with it,” said Crawford, who was benched for three games in the first round against Nashville. “It's been great up to this point. With a chance to go back to our building, I think everyone's pretty excited about it. But we can't get ahead of ourselves. There's a lot of work to do here and it's going to be an even harder battle.”