Rudy who?

[klemmer]

Great story on the last Coach to lead our team to the Promised Land



Coach

 

[Ruhtra]

Great find Klemmer! I've always been disappointed with the lack of info I could find on Rudy, this was a nice little piece of light shed on him.

 

[IceHogsFan]

That has to be one of the best reads on here.......... Way to go Klem.

You schooled me.

"Rudy always was overshadowed and I'm not entirely sure why,'' said Stan Mikita, a member of the '61 Cup champions. "Behind the scenes, he was the guy who kept the composure and made us laugh by keeping us loose and making us believe we could win it all.''



Consider only five men have coached or managed one of the five major Chicago professional sports team to a league championship in the past 50 years: George Halas and Mike Ditka with the Bears, Phil Jackson with the Bulls, Ozzie Guillen with the Sox … and Pilous.



Pilous, who at 46 was five years younger when the Hawks won the Cup than Quenneville is now, went 162-151-74 from 1957-63. But the only place Pilous was headed to after reaching heights here was the unemployment line. In the two seasons after the Cup title, Pilous' simple wide-open style allowed the talented Hawks to return to the Cup finals in '62 and finish second in the regular-season in '63. Yet the Hawks fired him anyway.



And this was before sports-talk radio and the Internet.



A rift with then-GM Tommy Ivan led to the dismissal that embittered Pilous, according to friends and family members, so much that he vowed never to step foot in Chicago Stadium again. Mary Lou Pilous believes her father stayed true to that pledge before he passed away at 80 in 1994.



"My dad didn't talk about that much but I remember him saying Ivan was always nervous he wanted his job as GM but he had no desire,'' Mary Lou said. "He no more wanted to do that than fly to the moon, but they fired him anyway. I think he wished he could have stayed a lot longer. He loved Chicago. Winning the Cup there was the pinnacle of his career.''



At breakfast tables and computer desks all over the Chicago area, some people still are asking, "Rudy Who?''



Besides being the Blackhawks' last Stanley Cup-winning coach, in hockey circles they regard Pilous as an innovator who was the first coach to pull his goaltender to add an extra attacker — a ploy he used to tie a junior-league game with 12 seconds left in 1954.

 

[klemmer]

It's a great trivia question as well, as many think that Billy Reay won our last Cup.

 

[bierboy]

Great, great article, Klem...thanks for posting it!!



I think the great trivia question is which coach first used the pulling the netminder for the 6th attacker strategy.

 

[Tater]

[quote name="bierboy"]Great, great article, Klem...thanks for posting it!!



I think the great trivia question is which coach first used the pulling the netminder for the 6th attacker strategy.[/quote]



I second that, thanks for posting the article and Happy Birthday Klem.

 

[fanof19]

Thanks for posting Klem, and Happy birthday!

 

[supraman]

Great read. Love reading about hawk history. Though to be a bit of a downer I notice a serious trend. A lot of people leave this organization embittered. We really suck at saying good bye it seems.

 

[IceHogsFan]

[quote name="supraman"]Great read. Love reading about hawk history. Though to be a bit of a downer I notice a serious trend. A lot of people leave this organization embittered. We really suck at saying good bye it seems.[/quote]





With the irony being that the Hawks legends were invited to come back and be a part

of the "family" again and yet, some are creating the EXACT same atmosphere that

they were trying to overcome.

 

[PYsebaert]

Oh, great article Klem, I only knowed him by name before. Thanks.



happy birthday as well.

 

[wetcoasthawk65]

Thanks Klemm. Happy Birthday. I hope the Hawks give you a great present tonight!

 

[Ton]

Nice article!



I've never really read anything on him before, interesting... does anyone have the correct pronunciation on his name? I wouldn't want to butcher it if I ever had to.