Blackhawks fans tempted to hit snooze Wednesday morning

From simple yawning all the way to glassy-eyed zombie, the range of exhaustion for thousands of Chicagoans Wednesday morning was directly proportional to how late they stayed up watching the triple-overtime Blackhawks victory in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

“I can barely keep my eyes open right now,” said Dan Ciancio, who saw the Hawks defeat the Nashville Predators at 1:16 a.m.

Blackhawks fan Matt Kuna couldn’t quite stay awake for the team’s thrilling triple-overtime win. | Mitch Dudek/Sun-Times

The Hawks now lead Nashville three games to one in the best-of-seven series.

Ciancio watched the overtime periods in bed with his wife at their Highland Park home.

“I let her sleep between periods and I’d nudge her when the game started again,” said Ciancio, 51, an executive with a Loop software company. “When they won, we tried to muffle our screams because we didn’t want to wake up the kids. It was crazy. A great game.”

Mike Richko has come to terms with the occasional sleep deprivation required of Blackhawks fans, who already have seen their team play two overtime games in this series.

“It’s playoff hockey,” he explained as he walked to his tech support job in the Merchandise Mart.

Richko, 29, nodded off a bit at his Ravenswood apartment, but caught the finish.

“It’s hard to complain about a game that goes that long and is that good,” he said.

Matt Kuna, 26, a Loop software salesman from Northwest Indiana, fell asleep during overtime.

“I didn’t make it,” said a disappointed Kuna. “I texted my manager saying I’m running late. She knows why.”

Kuna suspected others would be late, too.