Marian Hossa

latest news about Marian Hossa: When Patrick Kane scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal 4:06 into overtime in Game 6 Wednesday night, it ended a 49-year drought between Cups for the Blackhawks. It also gave former Winterhawk Marian Hossa his first Stanley Cup in three tries.

Hossa played just one year for the Hawks in 1997-98, but that one year was enough to earn him a permanent spot in franchise lore. He joined the team after the Ottawa Senators decided not to keep him on their roster, and he proceeded to score 45 goals and total 85 points in just 53 games. He led Portland to the WHL championship, but suffered a serious knee injury in the Memorial Cup final. Although he left the game, the Hawks won in overtime to secure their second Memorial Cup. It’s a time that Hossa remembers fondly.

“I learned the language, I learned the lifestyle and I had a little fun with guys the same age as me. It worked out good,” he’d later say in an interview. “I had lots of fun, we had a fun team, and in the end we won it. So there were lots of good times there.”

Hossa was playing in the Stanley Cup Finals for the third straight year, but Chicago’s win was the first time he got to lift the Cup. He played for Pittsburgh in 2008 when they lost to Detroit, then joined the Red Wings as a free agent that summer. He made it back to the Finals last year, only to lose in seven games to the Penguins team he’d left the previous summer. He signed a free agent contract with Chicago prior to this season, and helped lead the team to their first Cup in nearly 50 years.

Hossa totaled three goals and 12 assists for 15 points in the playoffs this year, including one goal and three assists in the finals.

He becomes the seventh former Winterhawk to go on to win the Stanley Cup.