Blackhawks win was a night to remember — but not for Stan Mikita

A few minutes after the Blackhawks won another Stanley Cup Monday night, Steve Carp, the Review-Journal’s resident hockey meister, sent out a congratulatory Twitter post to the Chicago puckheads on his list.

To which Al Bernstein, the Las Vegas-based boxing analyst, mentioned Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita, Bill “Red” Hay, Elmer “Moose” Vasko, Pierre Pilote and Glenn Hall — Blackhawks legends that he, and I, grew up with.

Al ran out of Twitter characters before he could mention Eric Nesterenko and Chico Maki and Pit Martin.

But he mentioned Stan Mikita second behind Bobby Hull, which is how it has to be, and probably how it always will be in Chicago, though Patrick Kane is moving up the list.

Stosh, which is what everybody called Mikita, was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1983, and he also designed the modern hockey helmet and the modern curved stick. So hockey goalies probably still hate him.

And then in “Wayne’s World,” they named a doughnut shop for him.

On the same day the Blackhawks beat the Tampa Lightning to win the Stanley Cup came the news that Mikita is suffering from a form of dementia. It came on suddenly and almost without warning.

“His mind is completely gone,” Jill Mikita, Stan’s wife of 52 years, told the Chicago Tribune.

Game off, Wayne.

Game off, Garth.

I watched the game, but after reading that story about Stan Mikita, my heart wasn’t totally in it.

Instead, I kept hearing Lloyd Pettit, the great Chicago hockey announcer, his voice rising to a crescendo, describing to young Blackhawks fans with transistor radios tucked under pillows after bedtime (so their moms wouldn’t catch them) how Stan Mikita was stickhandling over the blue line, and then there was a shot … and a GOAL!

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski