Chicago Tribune Staff - Hawkeytown: The Chicago Blackhawks Unforgettable 2013 Season

As if to steady himself from the shock, Blackhawks Chairman Rocky Wirtz put one hand on President John McDonough and the other on Vice President Jay Blunk.

All three men were walking down a hallway inside the TD Garden late Monday night walking on air, based on their smiles moments after the Hawks amazing 3-2 victory over the Bruins in Game 6 to win the Stanley Cup. For the Blackhawks organization, this was more than a feeling in Boston.

This was the kind of moment that changes lives and careers.

Oh, my God, can you believe this? general manager Stan Bowman exclaimed as he hugged his son, Will, on the ice.

It was a fair question.

Like they had all season, the Hawks found a way to come up with the right answer. The Blackhawks Way has instilled a sense of belief that starts at the top.

For years, they will celebrate Dave Bolland for scoring the winning goal with 58.3 seconds left and Bryan Bickell for tying the game only 17 seconds before that. They will praise Jonathan Toews for his consistent leadership and Patrick Kane, the Conn Smythe Trophy winner, for his clutch goal-scoring. They will compliment goalie Corey Crawford for proving everybody wrong and Patrick Sharp and Marian Hossa and Duncan Keith and every other indispensable player who made possible the second Cup title in four years.

But it all begins with Wirtz, McDonough and Bowman, who put together a team capable of doing what Chicago sports teams so rarely do and what no other NHL team has done since the implementation of the salary cap in 2005. A team thats so very un-Chicago, one that fulfilled promise rather than failed, a group making history instead of breaking hearts.

For the first time since the Bulls dynasty in the 1990s, a championship core in Chicago did it again. This is what the 1985 Bears were supposed to do, what the 2005 White Sox teased, what the Cubs only can imagine.

This was a team that refused to lose, a team that recovered from a 3-1 series deficit to beat the Red Wings and a 2-1 hole to defeat the Bruins. This was a team that trailed Game 6 with less than 90 seconds left before Bickell beat Tuukka Rask in front of the net, where he found himself often during the playoffs.

Just 17 frantic seconds later, Bolland established a lasting legacy by knocking a deflection off Johnny Oduyas shot past Rask to create a roar along Lake Michigan louder than any thunderstorm could.

It was on this date in 1976 that Bruins legend Bobby Orr signed a free-agent contract with the Blackhawks. Exactly 37 years later in a building decorated by Orrs statue, the Hawks took something Boston thought belonged to it.

What a team, what an ending, coach Joel Quenneville said. What a special group.

That group said all the right things before the puck dropped by promising to treat the opportunity to clinch like Game 7. But after the first period, it was clear only the team facing elimination did that.

The Bruins outplayed the Hawks so thoroughly in the first 20 minutes that they had to feel disappointed to head to the dressing room with only a 1-0 lead.

Nothing epitomized how much the Bruins had overpowered the Hawks better than the puddle of blood Andrew Shaw left after he lay still on the ice for a long, scary moment. Shaw blocked Shawn Thorntons wrist shot with his face from point-blank range and went down immediately with 4:01 left in the period.

As Shaw finally got up and skated away to get stitches, a smattering of boos drowned out any respectful applause.

Shaw returned in the second period, announcing his return to the ice by mixing it up with Tyler Seguin badly enough to draw a penalty. Such is the tradeoff with Shaw. You put up with his antics because his intensity more than compensates. Another example came after doctors stitched up Shaws face and he lost his helmet during a second-period sequence. He kept competing, just like the Hawks did after falling behind in a period they were dominated.

Boston can go ahead and hate this kid. Chicago cant help but love Shaw.

Maybe Shaw just knows how to follow the leader. Toews supplied his own show of fearlessness, taking the ice 48 hours after a blow from Johnny Boychuk in Game 5 a vicious hit that should have resulted in a suspension. Yet Toews trudged on, his incomparable effort level paying off at the 4:24 mark of the second when he delivered the equalizer that lowered a citys collective blood pressure.

It was one goal from the Captain that made One Goal a reality.

David Haugh

Chicago Blackhawks players celebrate their championship following Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final.

Andrew Shaw, who was hit in the face by a puck in the first period but returned at the start of the second period, celebrates the Blackhawks Stanley Cup championship.

Jason Lontoc and fellow Hawks fans rejoice after they watched the Game 6 clincher.