Suburban Patrick Kane gets his name in headline again

In 17 seconds near the end of the third period of Game 6 in Boston, everything changed. Behind most of the game, the Blackhawks staged a miraculous turnaround to win hockey’s Stanley Cup. Held in check for most of the night, Patrick Kane skated off the ice hoisting the Conn Smythe trophy as the most valuable player of the playoffs. And Hoffman Estates businessman Patrick Kane could go to bed without worrying about missing any overtime action.

Normally, it’s a bad night for Chicago hockey when the Blackhawks’ Patrick Kane and the suburban Patrick Kane end up with the same amount of goals. The businessman Kane did record an assist of sorts as he took his 84-year-old mother to visit a friend in the hospital just as the game was starting. Hockey’s Kane didn’t record a point during Wednesday’s game, but other Blackhawks stepped up to provide the Cup-clinching 3-2 victory over the Boston Bruins. Rewarded for his dramatic scoring and great play on other nights of the playoffs, Kane was named the most valuable player.

That gives the Patrick Kane who runs an automotive financial services business called One Source Aftermarket Solutions more chances to see his name in headlines. Since the Blackhawks made Kane the team’s No. 1 draft choice in 2007 and he quickly helped the Blackhawks win the Stanley Cub in 2010, the young hockey player has been one of the most recognizable names in Chicago. That means suburban Pat Kane can’t escape his name-only hockey link.

“It’s been happening for years. I get asked about it at least two or three times a week,” says the 54-year-old Kane, who doesn’t let it bother him. “It’s interesting. It is what it is.”

Obviously, this Kane doesn’t look like that Kane. But people taking reservations for restaurants by telephone don’t know that.

“If I didn’t have such an high sense of morals, I probably could get a lot of free meals,” Kane jokes.

As a member of the Anvil Club, a private supper club in East Dundee, Kane has his name on a metal locker where he can store his wine. People see his name and think the hockey player just might be a member.

“Every time I go to my wine locker to get a bottle of wine, I find six or seven pieces of paper in there. They say, ‘If you are him, could you please sign this piece of paper and mail it back to this address?’” Kane says with a chuckle. “If I was him, do they think I’d actually sign that paper, put it in an envelope and mail it back?”

The idea of sending them his Patrick Kane autograph has crossed him mind. After all, he has joked about being THE Patrick Kane’s father.

“That one works like a charm,” Kane says.

“I was so excited when I got called to come out to your house. Then I saw your house and figured you’re not him,” a person once told him after discovering his home falls a bit short of the other Kane’s home — a $2.68 million, 6,000-square-foot, five bedroom house that the hockey player bought last year in Hamburg, N.Y., just south of his birthplace in Buffalo, “In most cases, people are just kidding.”

Kane understands the draw of the name. He and his wife, Jayne Kane, like the name so much that their dog is named “Kane Kane.”

“We got him out of a no-kill shelter when he was 2. His name was ‘Kane,’” Kane says. “It seemed like fate, so we adopted him. Glad we did.”

Growing up with his dad working for General Motors, Kane moved a lot as a kid but spent enough time in Michigan to understand the passion for the Detroit Red Wings, a rival eliminated from the playoffs by the Blackhawks. “Everybody wants anybody except the Blackhawks to win,” he says of hockey fans he knows in Michigan and elsewhere outside of Illinois.

“I’m not die-hard. I get caught up in because it’s the Stanley Cup Finals,” admits Kane, who sends an email as the game begins reading, “I am feeling good about our chances tonight. Hopefully my namesake will light the lamp at least two or three times!!!”

The Blackhawks didn’t need Kane to score on the night they won the Cup. But the celebration by that Kane, whose party boy “Kaner” reputation earns him his own photo page on deadspin.com, reminds the suburban Kane of one thing he does have in common with the hockey superstar.

“I’m definitely going to celebrate this one and enjoy it,” MVP Kane says in postgame interviews.

“Not that I party that much, but my nickname was Kaner back in the day,” Pat Kane says. “My fraternity brothers called me Kaner.”