CHICAGO -- Even with their boisterous United Center neighbors off on an extended vacation, the Blackhawks accept their relatively subordinate position on Chicago's sports landscape gracefully.

There are the major offseason moves by the Cubs and Sox. And all the Bears have to do is simply play out their schedule, let alone score their biggest victory of the year on Monday Night Football to stay competitive in the playoff hunt.

One of the ways Rocky Wirtz has formed a strong bond with Blackhawks fans is by sitting with them during home games. Bill Smith/NHLI/Getty Images

"The Bears get a 25 [television] rating rolling out of bed," says Blackhawks owner Rocky Wirtz. "We have to work for our 3. But it's better than three years ago, when we got a .6."

Financially, the Blackhawks are still operating in the red. Last season, one year after winning the 2010 Stanley Cup, they barely made the playoffs and then lost in the first round. Before that season began, they purged their roster of eight mainstays from the championship team. And the season before that, the team fired its popular Hall of Fame head coach and parted ways with its well-liked general manager.

It still paled to two years prior, when Wirtz took over the team following his father's death. "Four years ago, we didn't have good relationships with anyone -- the media, fans, corporate sponsors, players," he says. "We were at war with everyone."

In 2004, ESPN The Magazine's Ultimate Standings, which measures how much teams give back to fans, ranked the Blackhawks' last in the NHL and 119th, or second-to-last, among all NHL, NBA, NFL and MLB franchises.

And yet the Blackhawks have not only bridged the gulfs of which Wirtz spoke and overcome their perpetual low rung on the city's relevance meter, but have become Chicago's model professional sports franchise, the best example we currently have of an organization that has earned the trust of its fan base.

While the Bears, win or lose, draw regular and emphatic criticism about everything from their coaching staff to their handling of player personnel to the fitness of their ownership; the Bulls, who still bear the brunt of the breaking up of a dynasty 13 years ago, now face fans' alienation of the NBA during a potentially season-long work stoppage.

Meanwhile the Sox risk falling further into the shadows of their North Side counterparts with the departure of one electric personality, the hiring of a first-time manager and the possible exit of perhaps their best pitcher of all-time.

And the Cubs, who would have been well-advised to begin their front-office sweep when the Ricketts family took over as new owners two years ago, are just now beginning the arduous process similar but even more daunting than the one that once faced the Blackhawks.

"Four years ago, there was indifference at best," says Hawks team president John McDonough. "The first two years were a blur. We changed out a good percentage of our staff -- hockey operations and business operations. There had to be a seismic culture change. We had to have people think differently about themselves and about the Blackhawks. There had to be a really strong sense of urgency too. This wasn't sit back and assess the terrain and see where we are in a couple of years.

"You're not going to get it all right, but we understood we were going to have to earn our way back into this because our fans gave us a second chance when maybe we didn't deserve it."

The key moves have been well-documented. Putting all home games on TV. Making amends with former greats like Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita and hiring them as team ambassadors. Doing the same with the equally beloved former coach Denis Savard, who was replaced with current coach Joel Quenneville, now a buddy and racetrack companion.

With all the talk about the relative youth of the Cubs' new baseball braintrust led by Theo Epstein, who will be 38 in December, the Hawks now employ a front-office staff whose average age is 32. GM Stan Bowman, now 38, was 36 when he took over for Dale Tallon.

But there is more to it, a "Blackhawks' way," similar to the model the new Cubs management team strives toward, and a philosophy of simply doing the right thing when it comes to their players and fans.

"It costs you a little bit more to do the right thing, maybe 10 percent," reasons Wirtz. "But it pays off 100 percent."

Ask Wirtz about good business and he will, more often than not, offer an example from the Wirtz Beverage Group, one of the nation's largest liquor distributors and the source of the Wirtz Corporation's main profits. And he will begin by talking about customer service.

"It's all about keeping people engaged," he says. "Money is one thing but what we get from fans is three hours of their time when we're competing with everything there is -- family, TV, Halloween the other night, not just other sports, everything, and they've been terrific."