John McDonough’s life story can be told through the items that surround his desk.

Family photos, pictures of current Blackhawks and former Cubs co-workers, three miniature Stanley Cups, a framed moment in time and much more from his past rest within arm’s reach or just beyond while he sits at his desk in the new office building at the United Center. It’s been a full life and career for the 64-year-old McDonough, and that’s reflected around him.

Many of the pieces of McDonough’s collection have been added in the last decade with the Blackhawks. Ten years ago today, McDonough embarked on that journey when he was hired to be the team’s president.

Blackhawks chairman Rocky Wirtz had pinpointed McDonough as the person he sought to lead his quest to return the sputtering franchise to relevancy in Chicago and the NHL. McDonough had built his own legacy with the Cubs over 24 years, but decided to leave that behind after a life-changing conversation with Wirtz — of all places — at a Champps in Schaumburg.

McDonough had bought into Wirtz the man and his vision for the Blackhawks and the role he could play in it. McDonough isn’t so sure many bought into him — “a baseball guy” — as the one who could guide the Blackhawks, but he went to work. What followed were firings, hirings, TV broadcasts, slogans, conventions, wins, sellouts and Stanley Cups.

McDonough sat down with The Athletic for a lengthy interview to discuss his last decade with the Blackhawks and what the future has in store for him and the organization. This is the first of our two-part conversation:

The Athletic: Can you take me back 10 years? Rocky approaches you. What did you have to weigh and what did you need to hear to decide that this is what’s right for me?

McDonough: We met at a restaurant on a Saturday in Schaumburg, and I was heading to Major League Baseball meetings. And I never met him before; I’d never seen him before. He’d never seen me before, never. So a Cadillac pulls in the parking lot. I can’t remember what the license plates were, but they were like 86 or something. So, OK, that must be him.

We wound up sitting for close to five hours. This isn’t one of these tales that grows and grows, but we just went on and on. A lot of it was about family. A lot of it was about philosophy. A lot of it was about business. Early on he had made the overture of, “We’re interested in you running the Blackhawks.” I said I have a really good job right now. But I bought into him. I bought in his charisma, his commitment to turn this thing around, that we were really only going to have one chance to get this right. Television was an absolute. That was an absolute. Independence, autonomy, making sure he was in the loop, but support decisions. He has been true to his word on everything.

We sat there, and it’s an interesting day because … I think he hired the right guy. I’m not sure. But it was so loud in this restaurant because it was the day — it was a Champps in Schaumburg — it was the day that Illinois beat Ohio State. So in the bar, it’s loud, Illinois scoring, it’s really, really loud, so we just hung around and just had a really good fruitful decision.

I always realized growing up in Chicago and being a Blackhawk fan — and you know I spent 24 great, wonderful, inspirational years with the Cubs, fond, fond, fond memories, had the great fortune — but we always looked at it … Wrigley Field, we would have lunch or dinner with the media, and I would ask them how are the Hawks doing or how are they drawing, and they would just say it’s sad, it’s kind of sad. When I saw Rocky, he looked like this was going to be the guy that was going to turn it around. It had to be. He took the gamble of bringing a non-family member into this position, and I give him a lot of credit because that wasn’t easy.

But because of his incredible business acumen and because he’s so astute and because he’s a social Olympian and he’s so good with people, he understands boundaries. He understands that if I’m going to hire somebody to run a business, I’m going to allow them to run a business. I said it early on, you only want to know about 5-10 percent of what’s going on here. But I call him for advice, I call him to tell him what’s coming. To me, I don’t have another reference point other than the Cubs, but I knew everybody in Major League Baseball, familiar with everybody in the NHL and have friends in all the other leagues, to me, he’s the best owner in our industry. In our industry. I’m amazed because he’s only been doing it for 10 years. He would say before I was only in the team picture, but he really understands it.

And he allowed me to hire good people, bringing in [executive vice president Jay Blunk] and making some real tough decisions about people who were here for decades, a coach whose jersey’s retired and a banner hanging in the rafters, another guy’s here 30-some years. These aren’t easy decisions. These are the Blackhawks. But he was true to his word from Day 1, and I wanted to make sure he understood why these moves were made.

TA: Over these 10 years, what are you proud of?

McDonough: It would be easy to say that I feel as if we’ve hired a young, dynamic, enthusiastic group of people who want to be a part of something really special. You’d have to say the three Stanley Cups. You’d have to say going to the Western Conference finals five times. If you had said 10 years ago, the Blackhawks are going to lead the NHL in attendance for 10 years in a row, that would never happen.

But I think it’s the people. We have a system. We have a process. We have a way of doing things. We’re very social here. We’re very respectful. It’s a comfortably uncomfortable environment. I like ideas organically from the ground up. I like thinkers. I like to challenge people. I don’t like the status quo at all, at all.

But the one moment I’ll remember forever … I’ll always remember the Cup, but the one moment I’ll remember forever, it was the 08-09 season. By now we were on television. We didn’t make the playoffs in 07-08, 08-09 we’re playing better. We’re starting to sell out. We’re a playoff team. The announcement had been made that we were going to play the [Winter] Classic at Wrigley Field. But l remember having conversations with Rocky, “I hope this fan base is feeling what I’m feeling because I feel this thing is coming and it’s coming strong.” I was in the suite one night just kind of sitting there, we were up 3- or 4-1, it was late in the season, and someone had unfurled a banner and it was poignant and it struck a nerve that hasn’t been struck since and I have the banner, actually. But it just basically said this (stands up from his desk). It was kind of an affirmation. That was it. (directs attention to a framed picture next to his desk of a banner hanging inside the United Center reading “The Pride is Back”).

As we were grinding, and I don’t mean to get emotional about this because I don’t talk about this often, but you’re making a lot of decisions on people’s lives. You have to build a brand new model, and you have to let people go. It’s really hard. You don’t sleep. It stays with you. You’re being labeled as cold-blooded. What does this baseball guy know? And I understand that, and they’re right. I wouldn’t blame anybody for saying, “What does this guy who’s coming over from the Cubs, what does he know?” And I understand all those things. So, there were a lot of challenges, but you kind of got the sense that we had already introduced the One Goal theme, and we already made the change with [coach Joel Quenneville], we had made the change with [general manager Stan Bowman]; we might not have made the change with Stan yet. But it’s just, I’m seeing and feeling something, and I hope they are. And it was like an epiphany. I’m just in the suite, not paying attention to anything and I see there’s kind of a ruckus up in the 300 level, and this banner is gigantic and it’s a bed sheet and someone just (voice breaks) … it’s hard for me to talk about. This might be the only things that get me, but it just said the pride is back. It’s like, we collectively feel the same thing, we feel it.

No guarantees, no guarantees on anything, but we have really been working hard to turn this around. Getting [W]GN TV on board and getting [W]GN radio on board and trying to get the coaching right and ultimately trying to get … Not a negative reflection on anybody, but when somebody is brought in to oversee an organization your name’s on it, so you’ve got to make these really hard decisions that they’re not fun, but you have an obligation to do what you believe is in the best interest.

But the Cups were amazing. The first Cup you win, and the only reason that you know you won is because the person who scored the goal is disrobing, he’s skating the other way. The second in Boston, miraculous ending. I actually … When we tied it, we were kind of celebrating, and by the time I gathered myself, I looked back down and I saw that the goal light was on. I thought the goal light had been stuck from the previous one. And that, we went and scored again. And winning at home was the ultimate reward for these fans.

But it’s been a challenge. It’s been a challenge. Come from a baseball culture, come to a hockey culture, different people, different approach to things. After the press conference here, I remember saying to the staff, the pace is going to be swifter, the expectations are going to be higher. Just like you, we read body language for a living, right? We read body language. And I could just see in the eyes of a lot of people, “I’m out, I’m out.” Whether or not this is going to work, we’ll find out, but this just isn’t going to be for me. Because I think it was just a culture shock. It was a culture shock because everything was going to be different — the way we thought of ourselves, the way we market ourselves, the way we were going to be a cap team not for the sake of being a cap team but giving ourselves an opportunity that if we needed to we could go there to win because of our owner, who understood that. In my opinion, if we don’t have Marian Hossa, we don’t win three Cups, if we don’t have Brian Campbell, we don’t win in 2010. You can only go to that free agent well maybe once a decade, you know, for a couple of guys and not very often in the salary cap era. It has been a challenge.

I would like to tell you that I think when I came here everybody was pulling for me to succeed. I’m not sure that was the case. But it even inspired me more. That’s OK. I think I do my best work when I’m a bit agitated and I was pretty agitated for a long time.

John McDonough was with the Chicago Cubs for 24 years before joining the Blackhawks. (Photo by Bill Smith/NHLI via Getty Images)

TA: The Cubs were coming off a successful season, and things seemed to be on the right track. Did you have to determine where that was going, if that would potentially lead to a World Series and if you were maybe leaving that opportunity behind?

McDonough: That was really hard because I had been president for 13 months or whatever it was and we won the division. I got off to a bumpy start, hired Lou Piniella .. hired Lou [points to a picture with Piniella]. Then we had finished last the year before. Now we had spent a lot of money. We had spent money on [Alfonso] Soriano and [Mark] DeRosa and [Ted] Lilly and Jason Marquis and others and ultimately during that year signed [Carlos] Zambrano.

It was really very difficult to leave the Cubs because I never anticipated that I would leave. They were great to me. I think it worked out for both sides. I had some opportunities over the years, but I’m from Chicago, I’m from the Northwest Side. Although I grew up a White Sox fan, to have the opportunity to work in Major League Baseball, work for the Cubs and just be part of that resurgence there. My first year, they win in ’84. It was between Harry Caray and the gentrification of Wrigleyville. There really wasn’t a Wrigleyville until about ’84. To see that thing explode, so you’re playing basically to 100 percent capacity every day, 40,000 people. You’re on TV on WGN-TV, 80 million people. It was huge. It was huge.

The relationships there with the managers, the players, the coaches, the staff. Baseball is different. It’s very episodic. It’s 162 games. And people go down on the field, they go down by the batting cage and they create relationships with the hitting coach and pitching coaches and managers. Larry Rothschild was here, and [Joe] Girardi’s a good friend and all of these guys. But I’ve only been back to Wrigley Field since I left a handful of times. The Cubs could not have been nicer. They invite me to everything. They’re just class personified. But I knew the day that I left that I didn’t want to be that guy who couldn’t let go. Like, “What’s he doing here again? Didn’t he just leave here in ’07?” So somewhere here in this office I’ve got a team picture of the Cubs in ’07 and the Blackhawks in ’07. It was difficult. We came close to going to the World Series within a game and went to the postseason I think six times, and it was huge.

But there was a change with [Sam] Zell coming, this was pre-Ricketts. Zell coming and an imminent sell, but I certainly felt as if I would have a role there. I didn’t know what that role would be because it’s the privilege of ownership to put whomever they want in that president’s job, right? Obviously they made a pretty good decision with Theo Epstein, so it worked out well for both of us.

TA: In what you do, how do you measure success? You can only control so much what happens on the playing field or ice. Can you separate what happens on the hockey side and business side?

McDonough: The one thing that I understand, what I recognize, is whatever you think is going to happen probably isn’t and lead with humility because this game can bring you to your knees in a heartbeat. On the business side and the hockey side, and it was true with the baseball, I saw it with the Cubs. There had to be a really clear, as there is with Stan and [vice president of hockey operations Al MacIsaac], a really clear understanding what my expectations are, a really clear understanding what my expectations are. And then we have to kind of agree. There has to be common ground. I don’t want to have expectations that they deem unrealistic, so we have to make sure our expectations line up and make sure every decision we make has a big picture labeled to it because we’re going to be playing next year and we’re going to be playing the year after that. The challenge of sustaining this is significant.

On the business side, it’s kind of a simple philosophy for Jay and his people. They’ve done an amazing job humanizing these players, marketing them, making them household names. Certainly winning helps, but the philosophy I’ve imparted to Jay is you have to assume we’re going to go 0-82. You have to assume we’re going to go 0-82, and every single win is a bonus, every win is a bonus.

It’s that really aggressive approach that we have a very unique opportunity here, very, very, unique. I think Chicago wanted the Blackhawks to come back. I think they wanted to. I would always hear things or always read things that there aren’t many fans here. They’re scattered, but there’s not that many of them. Well, they weren’t accurate. Is it the size of the Bears? Again with the Cubs, they play 162 games. Those players become family members from Feb. 15 to, in some instances, to the end of October. Those players become household names in your house every day. [Javy] Baez at short or [Addison] Russell, [Jason] Heyward or this kid [Willson] Contreras, and you know, the pitching staff and these players we acquired and Jon Lester, and Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant are emerging, and you’re seeing these two young superstars, not too dissimilar from our two young superstars, when they cash in and they win a World Series.

But I think it was a cultural explosion, and we have to make sure we keep that going. We do not take anything for granted here, nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. We don’t take anything for granted on the business side. We don’t take anything for granted on the team side. We go after it pretty hard up here. I don’t know what the perception outside of the organization is, if we’re just tossing Nerf balls at each other. That’s not what it is. But we challenge each other, and I think it’s really, really healthy.

People in this organization need to know all I want is for us collectively to succeed and them individually to succeed. I’m 64, and I want to make sure we recognize and reward people here. I want to make sure there’s an esprit de corps here, that people like working here. And we’ve had … Marc Bergevin has gone to the Canadiens, and Kevin Cheveldayoff has gone to Winnipeg, and we just had another young man who worked here in the ticket department that just went to Vegas, and we’ve had two PR people who have gone to the Bears. We’ve had many other people who have gone to other teams, some of them baseball. But that’s the beauty of this business. That if they can enrich their lives and careers because they worked for the Blackhawks, and they were in what they felt was a healthy system, where they developed and they were given a chance and we listened to them. Interns are respected here. You know [media relations assistant] Will Chukerman. Will was an intern. I mean, we respect them. We give them responsibility. I like their ideas. I love to hear the cacophony of laughter here, but I also love to hear youthful ideas.

Read Part II of this interview here.

(Top photo: Brian Babineau/NHLI via Getty Images)