Chicago Blackhawks: 61 Days Until Banner Raising

We had so much fun doing our Countdown to Faceoff series last season that we decided to do it again.  In case you’re new to the series, we’ll do a roster preview as we count down the days until the Chicago Blackhawks raise their 6th Stanley Cup Banner on October 7th season opener against the New York Rangers.

After the news of the Patrick Kane news I kind of lost my desire to do the countdown for the past couple of days and with there not being a jersey number related with the countdown it wasn’t a total loss I believe.

Anyways we are at 61 days until banner raising and when I hear the number 61 all I can think of is the number that pretty much haunted Chicago Blackhawks until 2010.  1961 was of course the season that the Chicago Blackhawks won their third Stanley Cup and a season that would be the last one in Chicago that ended with a Stanley Cup hoist until Jonathan Toews raised in Philly.

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There is some grainy footage from the 1961 Game #6 when the Hawks won the Stanley Cup so here it is.

The biggest disappointment for Chicago Blackhawks fans of that era (My Dad’s era basically) is that they only were able to win one Stanley Cup and the stars of that team (Stan Mikita, Bobby Hull) were so young and although they would win Hart Trophies they could never win the biggest trophy in the NHL again the Stanley Cup.

Here is the roster from the 1961 Cup winners, and you can see that Bobby Hull didn’t have his usual #9 but was wearing #16 in 1961.  The Stanley Cup 1961 engraved names are as followed (compliments of Wiki):

Roster

• 11 Bill Hay
• 12 Ed Litzenberger (Captain)
• 17 Ken Wharram
• 21 Stan Mikita
• 9 Tod Sloan

• 6 Reg Fleming
• 8 Murray Balfour
• 8 Wayne Hicks
• 16 Bobby Hull
• 14 Alvin Ab McDonald
• 15 Eric Nesterenko
• 10 Ron Murphy(A)
• 16 Ronald Chico Maki
• 20 Earl Balfour

• 2 Al Arbour
• 3 Pierre Pilote(A)
• 4 Elmer Vasko
• 5 Jack Evans
• 18 Wayne Hillman
• 19 Dollard St. Laurent

• 1 Glenn Hall
• 1 Denis DeJordy (spare/did not play)
• Allan Roy Edwards (spare/did not play)

Glenn Hall was in the middle of his 502 straight game streak, and Denis DeJordy didn’t even see the ice in the 1960-1961 season.  The team would win many more games and many more awards,  but their biggest highlight came in 1961 so when I see the number 61, I always see unfulfilled promise that had one shining moment!

61 Days Until the Banner is Raised!!

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