Team History

On September 25, 1926, Major Frederic McLaughlin was granted approval by the National Hockey League to form a team to begin competing in the 1926-27 season. McLaughlin had made his fortune in the coffee industry. He wanted his team to be competitive from the start, so he purchased the Portland Rosebuds from Lester Patrick for $200,000. The whole team was available because, the league they competed in was folding.

The millennium has largely been a disappointing time for the Hawks thus far. Eric Daze, Alexei Zhamnov, and Tony Amonte emerged as some of the team's leading stars by this time. To get your Ducks Ticket or LA King ticket. However, aside from a quick first-round exit in 2002, the team has not returned to the playoffs, in most years finishing well out of contention. Amonte left for the Phoenix Coyotes in the summer of 2002.

A somber note was struck in February of 2004, when ESPN named the Blackhawks the worst franchise in professional sports. Indeed, the Blackhawks were viewed with much indifference by Chicagoans for much of the 1990s and early 2000s, due to anger over several policies instituted by late owner Bill Wirtz (derisively known as "Dollar Bill"). For example, Wirtz raised ticket prices to an average of $50, and did not allow home games to be televised in the Chicago area. Many hockey fans in Chicago prefer the American Hockey League's Chicago Wolves to the Hawks, who have advertised themselves by saying "We Play Hockey the Old-Fashioned Way: We Actually Win." The club under Wirtz was then subject of a highly critical book, Career Misconduct, sold outside games until Wirtz had its author and publisher arrested.

Following the lockout of the 2004–05 season, new GM Dale Tallon set about restructuring the team in the hopes of making a playoff run. Tallon made several moves in the summer of 2005, most notably the signing of Tampa Bay Lightning Stanley Cup-winning goalie Nikolai Khabibulin and All-Star defenseman Adrian Aucoin. However, injuries plagued Khabibulin and Aucoin (among others), and the Blackhawks again finished with one of the worst records in the league (26–43–13) — next-to-last in the Western Conference and twenty seventh in the league.

Major McLaughlin chose the name Blackhawks for his team. There are a couple of different stories about why he chose that name. The first one says that during World War I, McLaughlin had served as commander of the 333rd Machine-Gun Battalion of the 85th (Blackhawk) division of the U.S. Army. The division's nickname commemorated Black Hawk, a prominent Indian of the early 1800's, so McLaughlin chose the Blackhawks for the team's name in honor of his military unit. The second story says that the Major had a restaurant in Chicago called The Blackhawk and he named the team the Blackhawks to get a little free advertising for his restaurant. There's probably a little truth to both stories.

Until 1986, the team's name had always been written as two words (Black Hawks). That year, owner Bill Wirtz officially changed the spelling to conform to Chicago's original charter of 1926. The name was mis-written on everything from League scoresheets to club publicity for 60 years.

The team's sweaters were designed by Major McLaughlin's wife. The early games were a social event and were attended mostly by the rich. They viewed the games as a novelty. The Blackhawks played their first game on November 17, 1926, against the Toronto St. Patrick's. Although they won this first game by a score of 4-1, the Blackhawks record that year was a dismal 19-22-3 and they lost in the first round of the playoffs. Their record got even worse as they had a combined record of 35-81-16 over the next three seasons. The Blackhawks played their home games in the Chicago Coliseum until they moved into the newly completed Chicago stadium on December 16, 1929.

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