By Dave Morris, exclusive to Hockeenight!

You can never have too much talent. Or can you?

Is it possible to measure the lust that swirled around the possibility that the Hawks might swoop in and snare Ilya Kovalchuk, the hockey equivalent of a cruise missile, before the March 2010 trade deadline?  Probably not.

But that pales next to the frenzy created by the trade that was, and then wasn’t, for the Kovalchuk of the 1960’s...Frank Mahovlich, ‘The Big M’. At the time, Mahovlich was the only player who came close to matching Bobby Hull’s fifty goals in a single season.

When the Chicago Black Hawks won their last Stanley Cup in 1961, they boasted an array of superstars that may only be matched by the current line-up. Hull, Stan Mikita, Glenn Hall and Pierre Pilote were the core of that team. One might argue that their modern day equivalents could be Toews, Kane, Keith and Hossa; but none of those players match—at least not yet—the intrinsic greatness of those men.

After all, Hull and Mikita were no older than Toews and Kane when they captured the Cup.

Having secured the ultimate price following more than a quarter century, the hunger for another victory, and the respect it engenders, was as ardent then as that of the fans in Chicago today. None was hungrier than the owner of the Black Hawks, the mercurial, fast-living, hard-drinking Jimmy Norris, whose brother Bruce owned the hated Detroit Red Wings.

As the 1962-63 season approached, Jimmy was in the mood to make something big happen. He’d given his brother a smackdown in the spring of ’61 as the Hawks had crushed the Wings in the Olympia and stolen the mug.

But he needed another one. Because sibling rivalry is what it is.

When Jimmy Norris met Toronto Maple Leafs owner Stafford Smythe for dinner and drinks in the fall of 1962, a deal was struck. A deal that couldn’t be struck in today’s PC CBA world. A deal between two incredibly rich guys whose hockey teams were their stable of skating thoroughbreds.

According to reports, as the whiskey flowed, Norris listened to Smythe talk about how his super-scorer Frank Mahovlich was threatening to walk out on the team over a contract dispute. The story goes that Norris offered Smythe a cool million to take the moody superstar off his hands.

The men shook hands, the terms scribbled on a cocktail napkin. Norris pulled a grand, maybe two, or three, or more, out of his pocket as a cash deposit. A check would be delivered when dawn broke.

When Bruce Norris heard about this—and no one seems to know who spilled the beans—he made a phone call to Stafford’s dad, the Darth Vader of hockey—Conn Smythe.

The elder Smythe, whose ruthlessness had been instrumental in the NHL’s seizure of hockey in North America as the domain of a cabal of power brokers, ripped his wayward son a new one.

When Black Hawk GM Tommy Ivan arrived at Maple Leaf Gardens with the million dollar check in hand, he was rebuffed.

The Toronto Star’s Milt Dunnell, one of the senior hockey writers in Canada, describes the situation as follows: “During a reception between team executives in the days before the All-Star Game, Chicago Black Hawks owner James D. Norris offered the Leafs $1 million for Mahovlich. He believed he had an agreement with Leafs co-owner Harold Ballard and paid $1,000 as a deposit with the balance to be delivered by check the next morning. The next day, the Leafs gave Mahovlich the money he had been asking for, and told the Black Hawks that their apparent agreement the night before had been a misunderstanding. The Leafs returned the $1,000 deposit. The Black Hawks accused the Leafs of reneging on a deal. Conn Smythe, at this point a minority shareholder in the Leafs, was adamant that the deal should be rejected.”

Dunnell went into further detail in a 2008 Star feature “Conn Smythe nixed Norris deal”. The article is so juicy, it’s worth reading it in its entirety.

“Not more than three or four persons actually knew the real story of what happened between the Leafs and Jim Norris, the night he bought the Big M for more money than ever was paid for one athlete. Because the main participants had been into the grape, following a shinny dinner, it was logical to shrug off the whole affair as an alcoholic publicity stunt.

“It wasn't that. But for Conn Smythe, who built the Gardens and organized the Leafs, the Big M would have become a Black Hawk and the new Gardens group would have pocketed a million dollars.

“The deal was made by Harold Ballard, representing the Gardens, and Norris. Both had been fortified by the gargle. Conn Smythe first heard of it after midnight when he received a call at home from Bruce Norris, Jim's brother.

“Bruce was concerned on a couple of counts. One, he felt Jim was being taken; and two, as owner of the Detroit Red Wings, he didn't want to see the Black Hawks get Mahovlich to go along with Bobby Hull. That would have given Hawks more firepower on the left side than a battery of anti-tank guns.

“ ‘Find Stafford (Smythe) and have him call me,’ the elder Smythe instructed. An hour later, Bruce Norris called again. He hadn't been able to locate Smythe's son. Meanwhile, the story of the sale had gone out to every newspaper and radio station on the continent. The Chicago Tribune gave it front page, top headline billing.

“It was 3 a.m. when Staff Smythe finally contacted his father, who asked whether it was true that Mahovlich had been sold to the Hawks. Staff confirmed the deal – and proceeded to get a lecture from his old man. Conn Smythe, a long-time friend of Norris, made two shattering points: No player was worth a million dollars, so they had taken advantage of the whiskey to make a sale. If the Leafs were lucky enough to have a player for whom that kind of money was offered, he belonged in Toronto – not in Chicago.

“Stafford Smythe readily agreed with his father's arguments. He informed Ballard the deal would have to be washed out. Norris, meanwhile, had gone to bed, believing he had bought a hockey player.

“In the cold light of dawn, he might not have been as enthusiastic about it as he was during the previous night's conviviality. However, he was committed, coast-to-coast. He knew nothing of the intervention by Conn Smythe and Bruce Norris.

“So he made out his check for a millionbucks and sent his general manager, Tommy Ivan, to the Gardens with it. Stafford Smythe rejected the check, with the blunt explanation to one sports writer: ‘We never rolled a drunk yet and we don't have to start now.’

“Almost a week later, sportscaster Joe Morgan announced the deal would go through after all. Morgan had discovered that Gardens directors had asked Staff Smythe to determine whether Jim Norris still wanted to get rid of his million dollars.

“If he did, they were in favor of proceeding. It was pointed out that a million dollars was equal to almost a total season's take for hockey. After a respectable drying-out period, the alcoholic content of the negotiations was negligible.

“Morgan assumed Norris still would buy. That was the only respect in which he was mistaken. King Clancy, who was sent to Chicago to inquire whether the marketplace had been closed, returned with word that it was no dice. Norris was off the hook. He was in no mood to get on again.

“Conn Smythe came in for some mumbled criticisms from a few Gardens directors. Their beef was that the Little Pistol had received a good price for his Gardens stock. Having sold out, he shouldn't try to dictate Gardens policy. However, they agreed it was difficult to disagree with his logic.

“Mahovlich also received a frantic call from his father. The elder Mahovlich said: ‘You've been sold to Chicago for a million dollars. Make sure somebody pays for moving your furniture.’”

Obviously. Bruce Norris didn’t want his playboy brother owning the two best scorers in the game.

Mahovlich, already humiliated by his mistreatment in Toronto, was as cynical as one could expect. “I’m not getting any of the money,” he told Associated Press reporters. When asked if he had any objections to being sold, he said, “What’s wrong with Chicago? I don’t care where I play as long as I get my bucks.”

There’s more irony in this story. A few years later, Mahovlich was traded to the Wings in a blockbuster deal. Bruce Norris got what he wanted, though the Big M couldn’t help a Detroit team that was sinking into mediocrity in the Ned Harkness Era.

Mahovlich was packed off to Montreal where he played some of the best hockey of his career and won another Cup.

I remember all of this very well, though I was no more than a sprig at the time. The Big M was my favorite player, and the Hawks being my favorite team, the thought of Mahovlich and Bobby Hull together was too good to be true.

It was too good to be true.

So what does all of this have to do with the lust for Ilya? Just that knowing Hawkey karma dictated then, and dictates now, that there is such a thing as too much talent.