Five minutes into describing his tumultuous recovery from sports-hernia surgery, Blackhawks forward Colin Blackwell broke down with emotion Monday.
Blackwell just had been asked how he has handled his absence, which will reach eight months this weekend, psychologically. He began thinking about how much others have helped him get through it and suddenly couldn’t hold back the tears.
‘‘It has been pretty draining, to be quite honest with you,’’ Blackwell said between pauses to try to gather himself. ‘‘Basically, my family, [my] wife . . . they’ve been awesome. A lot of the guys, too. Yeah, they’ve been unreal.’’
Blackwell’s last appearance for the Hawks came Feb. 27. In the few weeks after that, he determined he needed surgery to repair a hernia in his groin, which he had March 23 — days before his 30th birthday. His recovery timeline was supposed to be 12 weeks, which translated to about mid-June.
But as Hawks coach Luke Richardson pointed out Monday, everybody responds to things differently, and those timelines are mere estimates.
‘‘When you get something surgically repaired, then you’re always thinking that you’re going to be perfect,’’ Richardson said. ‘‘But it takes a lot to come back, for a body to recover — especially [at] a pro-athlete level.’’
June turned to July and July to August, and Blackwell still wasn’t comfortable enough to resume skating. He got married during the summer, providing a much-needed bright spot to his rough 2023, but there were a lot of lonely days hanging around Fifth Third Arena with only defensemen Connor Murphy and Alex Vlasic to keep him company.
When Blackwell tried to resume practicing during informal skates in September — as more teammates filtered into Chicago — he suffered another setback.
‘‘It was very frustrating,’’ he said. ‘‘It has just been one thing after another.’’
At last, while skating individually with injured forward Philipp Kurashev in the last few weeks, Blackwell felt as though he ‘‘got over the hump.’’ This week, he realized he finally didn’t feel pain when walking his dog without taking any anti-inflammatory medicine beforehand.
‘‘For the first time in a long time, I feel close to being like myself, [like] I used to be,’’ he said. ‘‘That’s a big step for me.’’
Although Blackwell has resumed practicing with the Hawks, it doesn’t seem as though he’s anywhere close to being ready to play in a regular-season game. Even when he eventually gets cleared, his spot in the Hawks’ depth chart looks much less clear.
After all, he struggled last season before the hernia, producing only two goals and 10 points in 53 games with the Hawks — down from 10-plus goals and 20-plus points each of the previous two seasons elsewhere. He was occasionally a healthy scratch, and his 40.1% scoring-chance ratio ranked 11th among 16 regular forwards on the team.
The Hawks’ offensive depth has improved significantly since then, and the other depth guys have enjoyed plenty more opportunities to show what they can do. That means there might not be any NHL roster spots available when Blackwell returns unless other injuries pop up. Rockford might be a possibility for him, via waivers or a conditioning stint (or both).
But it sounds as though simply playing hockey again — wherever that might be — would represent another moment worthy of emotion.
‘‘I’m a realist: I’m pretty behind schedule,’’ Blackwell said. ‘‘But at the same time, I’m a gamer. So whenever I get thrown in there or if I get that opportunity, I’ll be ready.’’
Added Richardson: ‘‘Getting back on the ice with the guys, it mentally gets you more motivated. You [sometimes] make that last step the quickest. Hopefully that’s the case for him.’’
