Jim O'Donnell: The final hockey legacy of Rocky Wirtz is framed by three glorious Stanley Cups
WHEN THE SAD AND STUNNING NEWS about Rocky Wirtz broke Tuesday, the best sports lede would have been the most straightforward:
"Rocky Wirtz, a man born into wealth and civic privilege but also into a family history notorious for National Hockey League futility, died after a brief illness. He was 70 years old.
"After inheriting stewardship of the dormant Chicago Blackhawks in 2007, Wirtz revitalized the organization and won three Stanley Cups in the next eight seasons. That run included championships in 2010, 2013 and 2015.
"The amazing rush equaled the franchise's total in its previous 82 years of existence - in 1934, 1938 and 1961. Only the 1961 Cup came under the flag of the Wirtz family."
Mark it, post it and salute.
From Rock Bottom to Rocky Top: All else is shaved ice.
BUT ANY FULL ACCOUNT of the chairmanship and times of Rocky Wirtz has to include details of his more recent tumble from pristine grace.
Would the contemporary media have it any other way?
The trigger point to that roll down was the sexual assault scandal involving a young video coordinator.
The sordid witchcraft occurred prior to the first successful Stanley Cup run of the Blackhawks in 2010. News of the scandal broke within the organization in May of that year.
But, according to a 2020 investigation commissioned by Wirtz and conducted by the law firm of Jenner & Block, he alone at the top of the Blackhawks power vertical was never made aware of it.
THAT'S WHERE THE REPORT strained credulity. That's because the last man standing between the bombshell news and Wirtz was team president John McDonough.
McDonough did not kindle his remarkable rise from marketing sweeper with the old Chicago soccer Sting to conquering president of the Blackhawks by failing to master corporate politics.
The instant that he became aware of the probability of a sex scandal down below in the Blackhawks, he would have immediately brought Wirtz into the conversation.
No other narrative makes sense. McDonough was simply too smart and too intensely protective of his own best interests.
SO THE JENNER & BLOCK REPORT exploded close to 11 years after the fact. Shrapnel from the grenade took down everyone in that power vertical - even the great Joel Quenneville, who by then was upscaling the Florida Panthers toward deep Stanley Cup contention.
Everyone, that is, except Rocky Wirtz.
The public was asked to believe that the proud chairman was left out of the loop for a scandal that was - at initial point of discovery - manageable.
Some of the glitter was off the Wirtz gloss. Those who would diminish got more fodder last year when he snapped at a reporter and his question about the scandal at a team-organized "town hall meeting."
It was hardly a complete fall from grace for Wirtz.
But in some quarters, it was more than enough to tarnish his legacy.
NOW ROCKY WIRTZ SUDDENLY DEPARTS and questions abound about his proper standing in Blackhawks history.
Those questions are easy to answer:
All previous iterations of team management - including those of both his bullying grandfather and his foggy father - took more than eight decades to match what his leadership produced in less than one.
Back in his wonder years - from the Beatles to the Stadium-deflating loss in the 1971 Stanley Cup Finals to Montreal - the magic of Blackhawks road telecasts aired almost every winter Saturday night on WGN-Channel 9.
BOBBY HULL, STAN MIKITA AND OTHERS in the mystic West Madison St. sweaters provided the ice escapades. Lloyd Pettit was the soundtrack and the sweetener.
Wirtz was just one of the young lads, falling in love with what could be an extraordinarily thrilling hockey team to root for.
He also knew the vexation that constantly offset the never-ending belief in a better Blackhawks tomorrow.
When more statues arise on the United Center campus, four should be certainties from that Stanley Cup triple - Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, the wretchedly wronged Quenneville and Rocky Wirtz.
AT CENTER ICE FAREWELL, no one needs to strain to toast W. Rockwell Wirtz. He breathed new energy into a team, a fan base and The Captive Sports City.
He may have started life with a golden puck, on a breakaway, inside the blue line, facing an open net.
But he scored a hat trick for both the faithful and the trendy. In the best of times, he did it with affability, likability and public grace.
In the end, Rocky and friends brought a fickle hockey town to happy Stanley Cup handshake lines that during a 49-season eternity were for NHL arenas everywhere but Chicago.
That is the straightforward hockey legacy of a man done too soon.
All else is now shaved ice.
• Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Thursday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.