Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Patrick Kane enjoys another day with the Cup in Chicago by attending ... a Jimmy Buffet concert?

Patrick Kane, Chicago Blackhawks

Chicago Blackhawks’ Patrick Kane hoists The Stanley Cup while celebrating during a parade honoring the Blackhawks winning The Stanley Cup on Washington Street in Chicago, Friday, June 11, 2010. (AP Photo/Paul Beaty)

Paul Beaty

After crashing a Jimmy Buffet concert of all things (I would have expected, I don’t know ... MGMT? Phoenix? Maybe just a trip to last week’s Lollapalooza?), Patrick Kane described the experience of presenting the Stanley Cup to the “Margaritaville” master and his crowd with one text-messaged word: “Blast.”

It’s funny, because that’s exactly how I would describe the sensation of watching Kane play hockey. He doesn’t have the force of nature, Lebron James-like game of Alex Ovechkin or the courageous, all-around game of Sidney Crosby. Instead, Kane simply brings a magician’s quality to the game, doing things with the puck on his stick that dazzle and amaze.

But he’s a blast far beyond the ice, which is what makes him a possible cross-over star at a level that Crosby and Ovechkin cannot match. It’s clear the kid has plenty of personality, even if it gets him in trouble when other people are driving him around in cabs and limos. All day I’ve loaded up the NHL.com front page to see the surreal image of Patrick Kane decked out in a Hawaiian T-shirt, presenting the Cup to a marginal faded “star” like Buffet. Here’s more about Kane’s visit to Chicago.

Kane went on stage during the middle of Buffett’s fifth song, ‘Boat Drinks,’ with the Stanley Cup. The crowd went wild.

He walked to center stage hoisting the Cup and then he handed it over to Buffett, who raised it up himself and handed it back. Buffett then handed Kane a tambourine and the Hawks’ 21-year-old star played along with the band while dancing around the stage and kicking beach balls into the crowd. Kane said it “was just a huge rush being on stage. The crowd was on fire.”

When the song ended, Kane raised the Cup one more time and the crowd erupted for a full minute before Kane finally left the stage. He watched the rest of the concert from stage right.

When we look back at Kane’s career, we’ll think of that odd Stanley Cup winning goal, his mouth piece jutting out of his mouth nearly every time he’s sitting on the bench and his phenomenal playoff mullet. Hopefully, the NHL and its marketers will see the value of an American star in a big market with a deep dish-sized personality.

That being said, he could probably associate with better entertainers than the man who inspired this parody (NSFW).