Hawks learn how to live with changing ice surface

They're not fighting it any longer.

They've accepted it.

The ice surface at the United Center is not the greatest.

Regardless of whether it's hot and humid outside as it was early on in the Stanley Cup Finals series against Philadelphia, or crisp and dry like it was Sunday night for Game 5, the Blackhawks know if they want to get something going offensively, there's absolutely no time to waste.

"Our game is skating, moving the puck, controlling the puck," defenseman Brian Campbell said after Sunday's 7-4 win. "We only have about 13 minutes to do that in a period because the ice gets pretty bad."

It's at about that point when the surface starts to turn chippy and the bad bounces commence.

Earlier in the postseason, a handful of Hawks players went on record complaining about the ice at the UC.

Eventually the tone eased.

"The last 10 minutes, it heats up a bit," Kris Versteeg said after Game 1 of the Finals. "There's nothing they can do about it. They're not going to change the temperature or anything like that.

"They're not going to tell the people to stop screaming and opening doors."

After a home playoff loss a few weeks back, one Hawks star walked past a group of reporters conducting an interview and told his teammate to "talk about the (blanking) ice."

But that was then.

This is now.

Hawks players are used to it. And if they have to return home Friday for a decisive Game 7, they know just what they have to do.

"We'll play our hockey for the first 13," Campbell said with a laugh, "then we'll play a little pond hockey and be careful with the puck for the last seven there."