Super Blackhawks Fans Named Premature Son After Jonathan Toews

CHICAGO — The Ramos family knew the Blackhawks were going to win the Stanley Cup this year weeks before Monday's game.

After all, they just had another son, and that only happens when the Blackhawks are going to win.

Roberto and Lenis Ramos, of Irving Park, are Blackhawks super fans with a unique distinction: They have managed to have a son each year the Hawks won a Stanley Cup in recent memory. DiMaggio was born in 2010, Elijah in 2013 and Jonathan just two weeks ago.

Still think your jersey collection makes you a bigger Blackhawks super fan? Hold tight; we're just getting started: Jonathan, who was born a month premature, is named after Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews; Roberto managed to squeeze in watching the 2015 Stanley Cup Final games between visiting his wife and newborn son at the hospital twice a day, and Elijah was born the day before the Hawks' 2013 win.

Jonathan Toews Jr., sort of

The Ramoses chose the name of their youngest son — Jonathan — based on a number of things important to them: Roberto said they are religious and like that Jonathan means "God has given," he kept hearing the name "Jonathan" during Lenis' pregnancy and the name matched Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews.

That's not the only thing unconventional about Jonathan, who was born June 1: He was born in the Ramos' bathroom and was delivered by his father.

Roberto said the family went to the hospital the day Jonathan was born but they were told Lenis was having pre-labor pains. They returned home and Lenis tried to relax, but she went into labor and gave birth to Jonathan before they could return to the hospital.

Jonathan was a breech birth, meaning he was born feet first, and Roberto said he had to help with the delivery. The baby was still for a moment, Roberto said, but then Jonathan looked at his father and gave a quiet cry. Roberto and Lenis wrapped their son in a towel and took him to the hospital.

"I had so many emotions. The strongest one was disbelief and shock," Lenis said. "It didn't hit me until a few days later what we actually went through. It was so unreal."

Jonathan was born about a month early, and he is receiving care at Presence Resurrection Medical Center. Lenis said he is unable to eat on his own, he needs an incubator to keep warm and he needed help breathing. He's progressing and is being weaned off his oxygen treatment, she said.

Dr. Ramakrishna Velamati, a neonatologist at Presence Resurrection, said Jonathan is doing "very well" and will probably be able to go to home with his family in four or five weeks.

"He's a very alert and strong guy, and his parents are very much into hockey. I'm sure they will get him going," Velamati said.

Roberto said the family spends as much time as possible with Jonathan; at a recent visit, they brought the youngest member of their family a Blackhawks onesie.

But they hope Jonathan won't just share Toews' name — Roberto said he wants his son to have the captain's leadership and sportsmanship, and Lenis said she wants Jonathan to be humble and mature like Toews.

Tradition

Jonathan being born two weeks before the Hawks won the cup means he's just carrying on family tradition.

DiMaggio ("like Joe DiMaggio," Roberto joked), the oldest of the Ramos boys, was born a few months after the Blackhawks broke a nearly half-century Stanley Cup drought with their 2010 victory.

Similarly, Elijah was born on June 23, the day before the Blackhawks took home the Stanley Cup in 2013.

The Ramoses place so much faith in the unintentional tradition that Lenis became certain the Blackhawks would win their latest series as soon as she found out Jonathan was going to be a boy, Roberto said.

"This kind of guarantees that they're gonna win the cup this year," she said, according to Roberto. When Roberto said there was a chance Jonathan could be a girl, Lenis insisted: "No, it's a guarantee. Watch: They're gonna win."

She was right.

It's a fitting tradition — if you can call it that — for the Ramoses, who have a history of loving hockey and the Blackhawks. Roberto grew up loving sports and favored hockey because it's fast paced. He goes to the games and wears Blackhawks jerseys like other fans.

"If you turn away you miss a play, you miss something exciting about the game," he said.

Roberto introduced Lenis to the game, and she fell in love, too, especially once she attended her first Blackhawks game while pregnant with DiMaggio.

Velamati said that in the time between Jonathan's birth and the Blackhawks' cup win he heard the Ramoses talking about how the Hawks were going to win since Jonathan is a boy. He said he thinks the Ramos boys' births corresponding with the Blackhawks' wins is a "happy coincidence," but it gave him confidence.

"I thought [the win] would happen and it did," he said.

No. 4 for the Ramoses, No. 7 for the Blackhawks?

While the Ramoses having kids has become a superstition necessary for winning the Stanley Cup for some, they're not so sure the tradition will continue.

Roberto said he and Lenis keep hearing they "need to have another one next year so [the Blackhawks] win again," but they still need to talk about how big their family will be.

"We're thinking about it," Lenis said, laughing. "We're not sure yet. We said maybe three or four."

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