Chicago Blackhawks
The Chicago Blackhawks are a professional ice hockey team based in Chicago. The Blackhawks compete in the National Hockey League as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference. The Blackhawks have won six Stanley Cup championships since their founding in 1926. They are one of the "Original Six" NHL teams, along with the Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Boston Bruins, and New York Rangers. Since the 1994–95 season, the team has played its home games at the United Center, which they share with the National Basketball Association's Chicago Bulls; both teams previously played at the now-demolished Chicago Stadium.
The Blackhawks' original owner was Frederic McLaughlin, a "hands-on" owner who fired many coaches during his ownership and led the team to win two Stanley Cup titles in 1934 and 1938. After McLaughlin's death in 1944, the team came under the ownership of the Norris family, who acted as their landlord as owners of the Chicago Stadium, and also owned stakes in several of the NHL teams. At first, the Norris ownership was as part of a syndicate fronted by longtime executive Bill Tobin, and the team languished in favor of the Norris-owned Detroit Red Wings. After the senior James E. Norris died in 1952, the Norris assets were spread among family members, and James D. Norris became the owner of the Blackhawks. The younger Norris took an active interest in the team, which won another Stanley Cup title under his ownership in 1961. After James D. Norris died in 1966, the Wirtz family became owners of the franchise. In 2007, the team came under the control of Rocky Wirtz, who is credited with turning around the organization, which had lost fan interest and competitiveness; under Wirtz, the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup three times, in 2010, 2013 and 2015. Rocky died in July 2023, and his son, Danny Wirtz, was named chairman of the Blackhawks.
History
Founding
On May 15, 1926, the NHL owners met in Montreal and awarded an expansion franchise for Chicago to a syndicate headed by former football star Huntington Hardwick of Boston.At the same meeting, Hardwick arranged the purchase of the players of the Portland Rosebuds of the Western Hockey League for $100,000 from WHL president Frank Patrick in a deal brokered by Boston Bruins' owner Charles Adams. However, only a month later, Hardwick's group sold out to Chicago coffee tycoon Frederic McLaughlin.
McLaughlin had been a commander with the 333rd Machine Gun Battalion of the 86th Infantry Division during World War I. This division was nicknamed the "Blackhawk Division" after Black Hawk, a Native American of the Sauk nation who was a prominent figure in the history of Illinois. McLaughlin named the new hockey team in honor of the military unit, making it one of many sports team names using Native Americans as icons. However, unlike the military division, the team's name was spelled in two words as "Black Hawks" until 1986, when the club officially became the "Blackhawks", based on the spelling found in the original franchise documents.
The Black Hawks began play in the 1926–27 season, along with its fellow expansion franchises, the Detroit Cougars and New York Rangers. The team had to face immediate competition in Chicago from Eddie Livingstone's rival, the Chicago Cardinals, who played in the same building. McLaughlin took a very active role in running the team despite having no background in the sport. He hired Bill Tobin, a former goaltender who had played in the Western League, as his assistant, but directed the team himself. He was also very interested in promoting American players, then very rare in professional hockey. Several of them, including Doc Romnes, Taffy Abel, Alex Levinsky, Mike Karakas, and Cully Dahlstrom, become staples with the team, and under McLaughlin, the Black Hawks were the first NHL team with an all-American-born lineup.
McLaughlin era (1926–1944)
The Black Hawks played their first game on November 17, 1926, against the Toronto St. Patricks at the Chicago Coliseum. They won their first game 4–1, in front of a crowd of over 7,000. The Hawks' first season was a moderate success, as they finished the season in third place with a record of 19–22–3. However, they lost the 1927 first-round playoff series to the Boston Bruins.Following the series, McLaughlin fired head coach Pete Muldoon. According to Jim Coleman, sportswriter for the Toronto-based Globe and Mail, McLaughlin felt that the Hawks were good enough to finish first. Muldoon disagreed, and in a fit of pique, McLaughlin fired him. According to Coleman, Muldoon responded by yelling, "Fire me, Major, and you'll never finish first. I'll put a curse on this team that will hoodoo it until the end of time." The Curse of Muldoon was born – although Coleman admitted years after the fact that he had fabricated the whole incident – and became one of the first widely known sports "curses." While the team would go on to win three Stanley Cups in its first 39 years of existence, it did so without ever having finished in first place, either in a single- or multi-division format. The Black Hawks proceeded to have the worst record in the league in 1927–28, winning only seven of 44 games.
File:Chicago Stadium 1930.jpeg|thumb|left|Interior of Chicago Stadium in February 1930, prior to a game between the Hawks and the Boston Bruins; the Black Hawks moved into the arena during the 1929–30 season.
For the 1928–29 season, the Black Hawks were originally slated to play in the newly built Chicago Stadium, but due to construction delays and a dispute between McLaughlin and arena president Paddy Harmon, they instead divided their time between the Coliseum, the Detroit Olympia, and the Peace Bridge Arena in Fort Erie, Ontario, before moving to Chicago Stadium the following season.
By 1930–31, with goal-scorer Johnny Gottselig, Cy Wentworth on defense, and Charlie Gardiner in goal, the Hawks reached their first Stanley Cup Final, but lost in the final two games against the Montreal Canadiens. They had another stellar season in 1931–32, but that did not translate into playoff success. However, two years later, Gardiner led his team to victory by shutting out the Detroit Red Wings in the final game of the Stanley Cup Final; Mush March scored the winning goal in double-overtime as the Hawks beat Detroit 1–0.
In 1937–38, the Black Hawks had a record of 14–25–9, almost missing the playoffs. They stunned the Canadiens and New York Americans on overtime goals in the deciding games of both semi-final series, advancing to the 1938 Stanley Cup Final against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Black Hawks goaltender Mike Karakas was injured and could not play, forcing a desperate Chicago team to pull minor-leaguer Alfie Moore out of a Toronto bar and onto the ice. Moore played one game and won it. Toronto refused to let Moore play the next, so Chicago used Paul Goodman in game 2 and lost. However, for the third and fourth games, Karakas was fitted with a special skate to protect his injured toe, and the team won both games. It was too late for Toronto, as the Hawks won their second championship., the 1937–38 Black Hawks possess the poorest regular season record of any Stanley Cup champion.
The Black Hawks next returned to the Stanley Cup Final in 1944 behind Doug Bentley's 38 goals, with Bentley's linemate Clint Smith leading the team in assists. After upsetting the Red Wings in the semifinals, they were promptly dispatched by the dominant Canadiens in four games.
Norris era (1944–1966)
After McLaughlin died in December 1944, his estate sold the team to a syndicate headed by longtime team president Bill Tobin. However, Tobin was only a puppet for James E. Norris, who owned the rival Red Wings. Norris had also been the Black Hawks' landlord since his 1936 purchase of the Chicago Stadium. For the next eight years, the Norris-Tobin ownership, as a rule, paid almost no attention to the Black Hawks. Nearly every trade made between Detroit and Chicago ended up being Red Wing heists. As a result, for the next several years, the Black Hawks were the model of futility in the NHL. Between 1945 and 1958, they only made the playoffs twice.In 1950, Norris' eldest son, James D. Norris, and Red Wings minority owner Arthur Wirtz took over the floundering club. They guided it through financial reversals, and rebuilt the team from there. One of their first moves was to hire former Detroit coach and general manager Tommy Ivan as general manager.
In the late 1950s, the Hawks struck gold, acquiring three young prospects, and obtaining both star goaltender Glenn Hall and veteran forward Ted Lindsay from Detroit. Hull, Mikita, Pilote, and Hall became preeminent stars of the team, and all four would eventually be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
After two first-round exits at the hands of the eventual champions from Montreal in 1959 and 1960, it was expected the Canadiens would once again defeat the Hawks when they met in the semifinals in 1961. A defensive plan that completely wore down Montreal's superstars worked, however, as Chicago won the series in six games. They then bested the Wings to win their third Stanley Cup championship.
File:Hockey game, Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Chicago Black Hawks, Maple Leaf Gardens.jpg|thumb|right|Ron Murphy and Eric Nesterenko battle in front of the Toronto net
The Hawks made the Cup Final twice more in the 1960s, losing to the Leafs in 1962 and the Canadiens in 1965. They remained a force to be reckoned with throughout the decade, with Hull enjoying four 50-goal seasons, Mikita winning back-to-back scoring titles and MVP accolades, Pilote winning three consecutive Norris Trophies, and Hall being named the First or Second All-Star goaltender eight out of nine seasons. Hull and Mikita especially were widely regarded as the most feared one-two punch in the league. However, despite a strong supporting cast which included Bill Hay, Ken Wharram, Phil Esposito, Moose Vasko, Doug Mohns, and Pat Stapleton, the Hawks never quite put it all together.
In 1966–67, the last season of the six-team NHL, the Black Hawks finished first, breaking the supposed "Curse of Muldoon", 23 years after the death of Frederic McLaughlin. However, they lost in the semifinals to Toronto, who went on to win their last Stanley Cup of the era. Afterward, Coleman, who first printed the story of the curse in 1943, admitted that he made the story up to break a writer's block he had as a column deadline approached.