Chris Hine: Taking Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman back to the place that helped shape him

SOUTH BEND, Ind. - One day in his dorm in 1991, then-Notre Dame defensive lineman Bryant Young saw a kid with "big calves" skating down the hallways.

Skating wasn't typical at Notre Dame, and it was certainly forbidden in the dorms.

"I thought, who is this kid with these Rollerblades?" Young said. "He was pretty cool. ... He would sneak by the (resident assistants) and he would time it up perfectly to get by them."

The kid had moved into a room in the same section of Keenan Hall as Young, and Young was curious about those Rollerblades, so he asked if he could try them out.

"He's this giant guy, 300 pounds, and he could barely stand up on them," said the kid, now Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman. "He took them off pretty quick. He didn't want to hurt himself."

But as it turned out, Rollerblading around the halls was about as rebellious as Stan Bowman got in college.

Those who know him best say he is low-key and no-nonsense.

Young said Bowman was mature "beyond his years in terms of his demeanor and his ability to listen and communicate."

But peel back the veneer and you'll see a cutting sense of humor - and a carefree streak of individuality.

"I really never worked with anybody quite like him before," Hawks President John McDonough said. "He's a different cat, there's no doubt about it. He dances to his own beat."

Or Rollerblades to it.

Since taking over as Hawks general manager in 2009, Bowman hasn't revealed much about himself.