49 years

Until young Mr. Kane scored that goal last night, I had been waiting 49 years to see the Blackhawks win the cup.

Well, I was not born until 1970, so I had only really been waiting 40 years.

Well, I never followed the hawks until Jr. High when my family moved to the far north suburbs of Chicago, so I have only really been waiting 28 years.

Those first few years, you probably could not even say I was a suffering fan, so lets call it 25 years that I have been waiting for the Blackhawks to win.  25 years is a long time, but not nearly as long as the Maple Leaf fans have been waiting (43 years) or even the St. Louis Blues or the L.A. Kings who entered the league in 1967 and never won the cup (I guess that is also 43 years).  Wow, I feel sorry for the fans of those teams.  It feels good to not have to have the longest drought anymore and be able to feel sorry for the others.

And we are not even going to mention the Cubs.

Before this year, the closest the Blackhawks came during my 25 years as a suffering fan, was in 1992 when the Evil Pittsburgh Penguins just destroyed the Mighty Blackhawks in a sweep.  I just looked back at the scores, and they were much closer than I had thought, but I am pretty sure I am remembering correctly that although there were a couple of one goal games in that series, the Blackhawks were not really close to winning any of those games.  That was really painful.  And, a few years later, the Blackhawks virtually disappeared for over a decade.  They were just so bad that it was almost impossible to follow them here in Colorado.  But, somehow recently, the front office got smart about signing great young talent and putting the right pieces in place to give the team a chance.

Last night they did it.  I'm very happy that it finally happened.