THE VERDICT: Joy for the game

Then there was that amazing goal, on a Monday night in January.
Unsurprisingly, Patrick Kane scored it, dipping into his bottomless toolbox. Just after New Year's, he was selected for yet another National Hockey League All-Star Game. Not that he needed validation, the Blackhawks' inventive genius provided another clip for his career-long highlight package.
Upstairs at the United Center Denis Savard, a Hall of Famer who could make the puck talk, gasped.
"Did I ever try what he just did?" Savard exclaimed. "It never even crossed my mind, what he just did."

"That play doesn't always work," he cautioned. "I had a little time and space, and I just sort of threw it up there."
Kane burst down the right side, collected the puck between his legs, then cut toward the net. David Rittich, the Calgary Flames' goalie, hugged the near post, and crouched ever so slightly. Then, as Kane approached the extended goal line, he flipped a backhand into the air, almost nonchalantly, as if he were waving a mosquito off his golf ball in the summer. The puck banked off Rittich's left shoulder, and up inside the roof of the cage. He turned and disgustedly fetched the puck, another victim of a prodigy's imagination.
"What Pat does there, a lot of guys don't do," Dad explained. "He keeps his head up, not down, looking at the puck. He's been working on that since he was a kid. That's what my friends in Buffalo meant. Pat broke his left wrist, and they put a cast on it. He was 7. He scored on a backhand with the cast. Eventually, the doctor took it off but told Pat not to play for two more weeks."
Not so fast.
"Dad took the cast, and put it back on me for games," recalled Patrick. "I didn't want to miss two weeks. Healed, anyway. The cast gave me extra support for the backhand, and after that, I kept going to that shot. That night against Calgary, you look at what the goalie's giving you. Maybe there's an opening, like between his ear and his shoulder."
Between his ear and his shoulder? And he just sort of threw it up there? After all these years, it is apparent that Patrick Kane can identify any nook and cranny of a net that will accept a well-aimed puck. The only way to prevent him from scoring is to drape the entire cage in a tarpaulin.
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Stan Mikita, superstar with the Blackhawks for two-plus decades, participated in nine All-Star Games. Last month's was the eighth for Kane, who recently turned 30. That does not count his debut in the YoungStars Game attached to the 2008 All-Star Game at Atlanta, where he scored twice. At season's end, Kane earned the Calder Trophy as best rookie.
"Montreal was my first real one, 2009," he recalled. "Carolina two years later, a bunch of us went. Sharpie (Patrick Sharp) was MVP. Last year, I think I sat between Nathan MacKinnon (Colorado Avalanche) and Blake Wheeler (Winnipeg Jets), picking their brains, talking hockey. That's probably the best part of All-Star Games. Hanging out with other guys. They're all special, the All-Star Games."
Perhaps the most noteworthy was the 2017 All-Star Game in Los Angeles, where the NHL celebrated its centennial. During the weekend, the 100 greatest players in league history were cited. Among only six honorees still playing were Jonathan Toews, Duncan Keith and Kane. When the puck was dropped, however, their Central Division got whipped by the Pacific Division, 10-3, and the three Blackhawks were collectively minus-9.
"Yeah, maybe that part we can forget," said Kane, chuckling. "That wasn't so special."

In 2010, there was no All-Star Game because of the XXII Winter Olympics in Vancouver, where Kane was the youngest member of the United States team that earned a silver medal. The 2013 All-Star Game was canceled because of the NHL lockout. In 2014, the All-Star Game gave way to the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, where Kane again played for the USA.
After the Blackhawks missed the playoffs in 2018, Kane starred for the USA in the World Championships. He gathered eight goals and 12 assists in 10 games, was named most valuable player of the tournament, and received rave reviews for his role as Capt. America.
"For that, I was one of the older guys on the team, the fifth oldest, I think," said Kane. "It was fun, being sort of a leader. I learned from a lot of great leaders in Chicago. I always said I would never really want to wear a 'C' on my sweater. But that was special, playing for your country. And it was only for a couple weeks, not for a whole season."
When Kane isn't tending to his métier, hockey, he veers toward his hobby, hockey.
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Kane knows the way to San Jose, and it's not nearby. He's played a lot of hockey these last few years. Kane, Toews, Keith and Brent Seabrook are not only the four longest-tenured Blackhawks, they are the longest-tenured active athletes in all of Chicago professional sports. Alex Ovechkin, after the perfunctory marathon run toward a Stanley Cup with the Washington Capitals, passed on the All-Star Game in California and took his medicine - a one-game suspension. Such a plan for Kane was non-negotiable.
"It would have been nice to have that time off, but it's an honor to represent the Blackhawks," he said. "Plus, you don't want to miss two games, the All-Star Game and the next one for us. The league's done a good job with the All-Star Game, the three-on-three, the skills competition. Things have changed even the last two or three years. The game is so fast. Third and fourth lines don't just dump it in. They're skilled. It's faster than ever. When I'm 50 or 60, maybe I'll look back at San Jose and have memories. It's exciting."
But of course. Exciting. Kane was similarly pumped for the Winter Classic at Notre Dame, his sixth outdoor game as a Blackhawk.
"That was really cool," he went on. "Original Six in that stadium, all that history. Where I grew up in Buffalo, there was a big Irish community. People loved Notre Dame. They wore the Fighting Irish gear all the time. New Year's Day there was fun, even though we lost. How can you not get excited about playing at Notre Dame? Funny, when it was about time for me to think about college, I got a call from their hockey coach, Jeff Jackson. He asked me about my grades. I was OK. Pretty much Bs and Cs. He said, 'well, we might have to get those up a little bit.' That's when I knew I wouldn't be going to Notre Dame."
Soon, Kane reached the fork in the road. College or elsewhere.
"Red Berenson, the great coach at Michigan, came to see us, sat at our dinner table," said Dad. "So did Jack Parker, from Boston University. In college, though, you play maybe 40 games. In juniors, the Ontario Hockey League, you play more than that. Pat could have had a scholarship, a full ride. He wanted more games, and the OHL is high level."
"A very, very difficult decision," Donna said. "I was for college. My husband, not so much. But it was up to Pat."
At one point, Patrick reckoned that, as a prospect often deemed "too small," he was projected as maybe a third-round draft choice. He joined the London Knights and lit it up: 62 goals and 83 assists during the 2006-7 season. That spring, the Blackhawks selected Kane No. 1 overall.
"It all worked out," said Donna. "As a child, he'd go to Sabres games in Buffalo, and be stickhandling around the concourse, with his mini-stick."
"At the Aud there, where the Sabres played, he would go to games and watch everything," said Dad. "Just stare at the warmups. Then, when we had seats right next to the bench, he'd study the stick rack. What players did with the curves of their sticks. The knobs. Always hockey. We'd go to hockey schools in the summer. He'd do the morning session. Then the instructors were so impressed, they invited him to stay for the afternoon session at no charge. Pat would be first on and last off. He wouldn't leave until he scored. If he took a shot at a goalie and was stopped, he'd take another shot until he scored. Everybody looked at him. This kid is crazy. Crazy for hockey."
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When Kane arrived in Chicago, awed by the size of the city and the traffic, he adjusted as a resident in the household of Stan Bowman, now the Senior Vice President/General Manager of the Blackhawks. Bowman didn't require that Kane take out the garbage but knew he could carry the mail. Years later, Bowman marvels at Kane's hockey IQ, specifically the knack of finding breathing room.
"Patrick just has that instinctive ability to see open spaces," Bowman said. "It's like this. If you sit at ice level, or close to it, you see all the commotion, the movement, the big, tall bodies. But if you watch a game from, say, the 300 level at the United Center, you see it differently. 'Oh, there's a guy who's open. Right over there.' The best way I can explain it is that Patrick is playing on ice level, but is seeing the game as if he's at the 300 level, a slower version. It's uncanny. You can't teach that."
In 2016, Kane won the Hart Trophy, the Art Ross Trophy and the Ted Lindsay Award. At the ceremony in Las Vegas, he was asked about his number of career linemates. One of his pals had counted 27 or so.
"That's low, got to be in the 60s now," said Dad. "If you play ten years with six different guys, that's 60 right there. And this is his 12th year."
Point is, it should be a badge. Through three coaches-Savard, Joel Quenneville, Jeremy Colliton-Kane is being told he can play with anybody.
"He's always open!!" said Erik Gustafsson, a young defenseman with whom Kane has developed chemistry. "I'm just so glad I don't have to play against him. And because he's always open, when I don't pass him the puck, he gets mad."
Savard understands.
"You gotta realize, Kaner is unique," he said. "He has that vision, like Gretz (Wayne Gretzky.) Patrick waits until the absolute last second to shoot or pass. Yeah, he gets frustrated when he's open and his own guys don't get the puck to him. I tell Kaner, 'Patrick, not everybody sees like you and not everybody thinks like you.'"
"I try," said Kane. "I realize maybe sometimes I can be difficult to play with, but I try to make other guys better. The whole process is fun. Losing isn't, and last year toward the end we got into kind of a losing mentality. But I'm so lucky to be doing this and Jeremy has us going in the right direction. We maybe didn't realize how tough it was to win three Cups, but a fourth would sure be icing on the cake. You don't go into a game thinking, well, we've lost a lot of players because of the salary cap. You go out there to play your best. And you never really don't want to go to the rink. Hockey, besides family, has been the love of my life since I was 7. Gotta enjoy it."
Hockey, and all its trappings. Travel, practice, bus rides, locker room.
Opening night at the United Center, 2018. Auston Matthews scores to give the Toronto Maple Leafs a 6-5 lead late in the third period. He cups his left ear with his hand. Can't hear you! Just 33 seconds later, Kane scores and cups his left ear with his hand. Showtime.
"Auston was laughing on his bench, and we texted after," recalled Kane. "That was fun. I wasn't trying to dis him. Just happened. We want to win, fans want to be entertained. Like Bobby Hull said, we're there to give them some excitement. One of my favorite things is when I look at pictures. Not of myself. But after a goal, the first few rows of fans. Like that game against Calgary. How happy they are, standing up and yelling and applauding. That picture after I scored in Game 6 against Tampa Bay in the 2015 Final. I'm down on one knee, pointing a Brad Richards. The fans in the background. They're going nuts. This is big. This could be the night we win the Cup. So much fun. Hockey's been my life."
Joy for the game. You can't teach that, either.