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When the Chicago Black Hawks competed for and won hockey’s biggest prize, the Stanley Cup, recently, much was made of the long drought the team had endured since its’ last title, in 1961. I was just starting to get into sports around that year but don’t remember watching much hockey until the mid-’60s when Toronto was battling to win the Cup. I thought it would be interesting to look back at that 1961 team since I didn’t know much about them. The one thing I did know was that the team had three of the sport’s all-time greatest players on its’ roster – Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita and goaltender Glenn Hall. Hull and Mikita were making their first appearances in the Stanley Cup Finals. Hall was a great goalie who once played in 502 consecutive games. The players were real workhorses  back then, and earned every dime they made. The Hawks defeated the Detroit Red Wings in six games to earn the title, and had ousted the defending champion Montreal Canadiens to get to the finals. The league only had 6 teams at that time and Montreal and Detroit were both considered the class of the league, so the Hawks’ drive to the Cup was no fluke, they beat the best to win it. The team captain was Ed Litzenberger, a player I’d never heard of until I researched this post. He was certainly less famous than the captain of the opposing team in the finals, Detroit’s Gordie Howe. Tough guy Reg Fleming was on the roster, and I’m sure he spent most of the series keeping Wings’ goon Ted Lindsay away from guys like Hull and Mikita. The roster was dotted with players with great hockey names – Chico Maki, Eric Nesterenko, Ab McDonald, Bill Hay, Elmer Vasko and Pierre Pilote (great hockey name if I’ve ever heard one).  Congratulations to the 2009-10 Black Hawks on their Stanley Cup win, and a shout-out to their hockey ancestors from 1961.