Chicago Blackhawks

The Chicago Blackhawks are a professional men's ice hockey team based in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the Central Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). They have won three Stanley Cup Championships and thirteen division titles since their foundation in 1926. The Blackhawks are one of the Original Six NHL teams along with the Boston Bruins, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers, and Detroit Red Wings. Since 1994, the Blackhawks have played in the United Center in Chicago after over 60 years in Chicago Stadium.

Franchise history

Founding
The Chicago Black Hawks joined the NHL in 1926 as part of the league's successful foray into United States-based teams. They were founded by coffee tycoon Frederic McLaughlin. Most of the Hawks' original players came from the Portland Rosebuds of the Western Canada Hockey League, which had folded the previous season.

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 a Native American of the Sauk nation, Chief Black Hawk, who was a prominent figure in the history of Illinois. McLaughlin evidently named the hockey team in honour of the military unit, making it one of many sports team names using Native Americans as icons. For many years, the name was spelled primarily "Black Hawks", but sometimes "Blackhawks", even by the club itself. This ambiguity was finally settled in the summer of 1986 when the club officially decided on the one-word version based on the spelling found in the original franchise documents.

McLaughlin took a very active role in running the team despite knowing very little about hockey. For most of his tenure as owner, he served as his own general manager.

1926-1938
The Hawks' first season was a moderate success, with the forward line of Mickey MacKay, Babe Dye, and Dick Irvin each finishing near the top of the league's scoring race. The Black Hawks lost their 1927 first-round playoff series to the Boston Bruins, who had made the playoffs for the first time ever. The Blackhawks were considered the worst team in the NHL at that time.

Following the series, McLaughlin fired head coach Pete Muldoon. According to Jim Coleman, sportswriter for the Toronto Globe and Mail, McLaughlin felt the 'Hawks were good enough to finish first. Muldoon disagreed, and in a fit of pique, McLaughlin fired him. At the time, finishing in first place was considered to be as much of an achievement as winning the greatly coveted Stanley Cup. 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, and became one of the first widely-known sports "curses". While the team would win three Stanley Cups, they would do so without having finished in first place either in a multi- or single-division format.

The 'Hawks proceeded to have the worst record in the league in 1927-28. By 1931, the 'Hawks reached their first Stanley Cup Final, with goal-scorer Johnny Gottselig, Cy Wentworth on defence, and Charlie Gardiner in goal, but fizzled in the final two games against the Montreal Canadiens. Chicago had another stellar season in 1932, but that did not translate into playoff success.

1934 First Cup Win
The Blackhawks won their first Stanley Cup in 1934 (over the Detroit Red Wings), with Gardiner's 1.73 goals against average and Paul Thompson's 20 goals. Gardiner died of a brain hemorrhage two months after the season ended.

1938 Cup Win
In 1938 the Black Hawks had a record of 14–25, and only barely made the playoffs. They stunned the Canadiens and New York Americans on overtime goals in the deciding games of both series, advancing to the Final against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Black Hawks goalie Mike Karakas was injured and couldn't play. This forced 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. When the Black Hawks attempted to repeat this with another goalie, that didn't work and they lost. However, for Games 3 and 4, Karakas was fitted with a special skate to protect his injured toe, and won both games. It was too late for Toronto, as the Hawks won their second championship. The 1938 Black Hawks Cup champions remain the team with the poorest regular season record ever to win the Stanley Cup.

The Original Six era
The Black Hawks got back to the Final in 1944 behind Bill Mosienko and Doug Bentley's 30-goal seasons and their linemate Clint Smith leading the league in assists. After upsetting the Red Wings in the semifinals, they were promptly dispatched by the juggernaut Canadiens in four games. Mosienko still holds the record for quickest hat trick, 21 seconds, in the NHL, but Habs star Maurice "The Rocket" Richard proved to be Mosienko's better.

Owner and founder Frederic McLaughlin died in 1944. His estate sold the team to a syndicate headed by longtime team president Bill Tobin. However, Tobin was only a puppet for Red Wings owner James E. Norris, who had been the Black Hawks' landlord since his 1936 purchase of 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 between Detroit and Chicago ended up being Red Wing heists. As a result, for the next several years, Chicago was the model of futility in the NHL. Between 1945 and 1958, they only made the playoffs twice.

Upon the death of James E. Norris, Norris' eldest son, James D. Norris, and Red Wings minority owner Arthur Wirtz (the senior Norris's original partner in buying the Red Wings 23 years earlier) took over the floundering club. They guided it through financial reverses, and rebuilt the team from there. One of their first moves was to hire Tommy Ivan, former Detroit coach and GM, as general manager.

In the late 1950s, the Hawks struck gold, picking up three young prospects, forwards Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita, and defenceman Pierre Pilote, as well as obtaining star goaltender Glenn Hall and veteran forward Ted Lindsay, co-organizer of the original NHL Players Association, who'd just had a career season (30 goals-55 assists), from Detroit. Hull, Mikita, Pilote, and Hall would become preeminent stars, and all would eventually make 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 that the Canadiens would once again beat the Hawks when they met in the semifinals in 1961. A defensive plan that completely wore down Montreal's superstars did the trick though, as Chicago won the series in six games. They then bested the Wings to win their third (and, as of 2007, most recent) Stanley Cup championship. In the 25 years of the Original Six era, this was the only time a team other than Montreal, Toronto, New York or Detroit won the Cup.

The Hawks made the Cup finals twice more in the 1960s, losing to the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1962 and the Habs in 1965. Chicago remained a force to be reckoned with throughout the decade, with Hull's 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 1967, the last season of the six-team NHL, the 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 the Stanley Cup. 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.

The expansion era
Hall left for the expansion St. Louis Blues for the 1967-68 season. Pilote left for the Maple Leafs for the 1968-69 season. In that season, despite Hull breaking his own previous record of 54 goals in a season with 58, the Black Hawks missed the playoffs for the first time since 1958—and the last time before 1998.

In 1967, the Black Hawks made a trade with the Boston Bruins that turned out to be one of the most one-sided in the history of the sport. Chicago sent young forwards Esposito, Ken Hodge and Fred Stanfield to Boston in exchange for Pit Martin, Jack Norris and Gilles Marotte. While Martin would star for the Hawks for many seasons, Esposito, Hodge, and Stanfield would lead the Bruins to the top of the league for several years and capture two Stanley Cups. In Boston, Phil Esposito set numerous scoring records en route to a career as one of the NHL's all-time greats.

Nonetheless, in 1971, life was made easier for Chicago, as in an attempt to better balance the divisions, the expansion Buffalo Sabres and Vancouver Canucks were both placed in the East Division, while the Hawks moved into the West Division. They became the class of the West overnight, rampaging to a 46-17-15 record and an easy first-place finish. With second-year goalie Tony Esposito (Phil's younger brother and winner of the Calder Memorial Trophy for Rookie of the Year the previous season), Hull, his younger brother Dennis, Mikita, and sterling defencemen Stapleton and Bill White, the Hawks reached the Stanley Cup final before bowing out to the Canadiens. Montreal veteran Henri Richard admitted later, "I could have been a bum, and instead, I was a hero."[citation needed]

A critical blow to the franchise came in 1972, though, with the start of the World Hockey Association. Long dissatisfied with how little he was paid as the league's marquee star, Bobby Hull jumped to the upstart Winnipeg Jets for a million-dollar contract. Former Philadelphia Flyers star Andre Lacroix, who received very little ice time in his single season in Chicago, joined Hull, and the pair became two of the WHA's great stars. The Hawks repeated their appearance in Cup Final that year, however, again losing to Montreal. Stapleton left for the WHA too after that year, depleting the team further.

While the team led or was second in the West Division for four straight seasons, for the rest of the 1970s, the Black Hawks made the playoffs each year but were never a successful Stanley Cup contender, losing 16 straight playoff games at one point. The team acquired legendary blueliner Bobby Orr from the Boston Bruins in 1976, but ill health forced him to sit out for most of the season, and he eventually retired in 1979. Stan Mikita did the same the following year after playing 22 years in Chicago, the third-longest career for a single team in league history.

By 1982, the Black Hawks squeaked into the playoffs as the 4th seed in the Norris Division (at the time the top four teams in each division automatically made the playoffs), and were one of the league's Cinderella teams that year. Led by second-year Denis Savard's 32 goals and 119 points and Doug Wilson's 39 goals, the Hawks stunned the Minnesota North Stars and Blues in the playoffs before losing to another surprise team, the Vancouver Canucks, who made the Stanley Cup Finals. Chicago proved they were no fluke the next season, also making the third round before losing to the eventual runner-up Edmonton Oilers. After an off-year in 1984, the Hawks again faced a now fresh-off-a-ring Edmonton offensive juggernaut of a team and lost in the third round in 1985.

In 1986, while going through the team's records, someone discovered the team's original NHL contract, and found that the name "Blackhawks" was printed as a compound word as opposed to two separate words ("Black Hawks") which was the way most sources had been printing it and as the team had always officially listed it. The name officially became "Chicago Blackhawks" from that point on.

In the late 1980s, Chicago still made the playoffs on an annual basis, but made early-round exits each time. It wasn't for a lack of offense, though: Savard and Steve Larmer each consistently scored 30 goals a season. The defence was poor.

In 1989, after three straight first-round defeats, and despite a fourth-place finish in their division in the regular season, Chicago made it to the Conference Final in the rookie seasons of both goalie Ed Belfour and center Jeremy Roenick. Once again though, they would fail to make the Stanley Cup Final, losing to the eventual champion Calgary Flames.

The following season the Hawks did prove they were late-round playoff material, running away with the Norris Division title, but, yet again, the third round continued to stymie them, this time against the Oilers, despite 1970s Soviet star goaltender Vladislav Tretiak coming to Chicago to become the Blackhawks' goaltender coach.

In 1991, Chicago was poised to fare even better in the playoffs, winning the Presidents' Trophy for best regular-season record, but the Cinderella Minnesota North Stars stunned them in six games in the first-round en route to an improbable Stanley Cup Final appearance.

In 1992 the Blackhawks, with Roenick scoring 53 goals, Chris Chelios (acquired from Montreal two years previously) on defence, and Belfour in goal, finally reached the Final after 19 years out of such status. However, they were swept four games to none by the Mario Lemieux-led defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins. Although the 4-0 sweep would normally indicate Pittsburgh dominance, it was actually a close series that could have gone either way. Game 1 saw the Blackhawks squander leads of 3-0 and 4-1, and would eventually be beaten 5-4 after a Lemieux power-play goal with 9 seconds remaining in regulation. The Blackhawks most lackluster game was Game 2, losing 3-1. A frustrating loss of 1-0 followed in game 3, and a natural hat trick from Dirk Graham and stellar play from Dominik Hasek(who showed indications of the goaltender he would later become) could not secure a win in game 4, which ended in 6-5 final in favor of Pittsburgh.

Belfour posted a 40-win season in 1993 as the Hawks looked to go deep yet again, and Chelios accumulated career-high penalty time with 282 minutes in the box, but St. Louis stunned Chicago with a first-round sweep.

After a near-.500 season in 1994, the Blackhawks moved out of the old Chicago Stadium and into the new United Center in the lockout-shortened 1995 season. Bernie Nicholls and Joe Murphy both scored 20 goals over 48 games, and Chicago once again made it to the Western Conference Final, losing to the rival Detroit Red Wings.

Roenick, Belfour, and Chelios were all traded away as the Blackhawks faltered through the late 1990s until they missed the playoffs in 1998 for the first time in 29 years, one season short of tying the Boston Bruins' record for the longest such streak in North American professional sports history.

The 21st century
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. However, Chicago missed the playoffs for four straight years until they took a quick first-round exit in 2002. Amonte left for the Phoenix Coyotes in the summer of 2002, and the Blackhawks missed the playoffs again in 2003 and 2004.

A somber note was struck in February of 2004, when ESPN named the Blackhawks the worst franchise in professional sports [1]. Indeed, the Blackhawks are now viewed with much indifference by Chicagoans, who feel that management is deliberately trying to alienate the fan base. Late owner Bill Wirtz raised ticket prices to an average of $50, and did not allow home games to be televised locally 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 defenceman 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.

The Blackhawks reached another low point on May 16, 2006, when they announced that longtime TV/radio play-by-play announcer Pat Foley, the voice of the 'Hawks for 25 years, was not going to be brought back, a move unpopular amongst most Blackhawks fans. Foley then became the television/radio voice of the Wolves, seen as emblematic of Chicago hockey fans' embracing of a minor-league team over the 'Hawks, all because of the man known as "Dollar Bill" Wirtz.

With the third overall pick in the 2006 NHL Entry Draft, the team selected Jonathan Toews, who led the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux hockey team to the 2006 NCAA Frozen Four.

The Blackhawks were eager to make a splash in the free-agent market, and offered big money to many of the top free agents. They were, however, denied, only being able to acquire two backup goalies in Patrick Lalime and Sebastien Caron. Chicago was one of the biggest buyers in the trade market, though, acquiring a future franchise player in left-winger Martin Havlat, as well as center Bryan Smolinski from the Ottawa Senators in a three-way deal that also involved the San Jose Sharks. The 'Hawks dealt mean forward Mark Bell to the Sharks, Michal Barinka and a 2008 second-round draft pick to the Senators, while Ottawa also received defenceman Tom Preissing and center Josh Hennessy from San Jose. Havlat gave the Blackhawks the talented, first-line caliber gamebreaker they so desperately needed. The Havlat trade was soon followed by another major trade — winger and key Blackhawk player, another left wing, Kyle Calder, was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for grinding defensive center Michal Handzus. The move caused a stir in Chicago. Calder had won an increase in his contract through arbitration, which was accepted by the Hawks, but rather than ink their leading scorer, the Blackhawks decided to address their need for a proven center by acquiring Handzus. Injuries to both Havlat and Handzus hurt the Blackhawks, and Smolinski was eventually traded at the trade deadline to the Vancouver Canucks. On November 26, 2006 Blackhawks GM Dale Tallon fired Head Coach Trent Yawney and appointed assistant coach Denis Savard as head coach. Savard had been the Assistant Coach of the Blackhawks since 1997, the year after he retired as one of the most popular and successful Blackhawks of all time. The Blackhawks continued to struggle, and finished last in the Central Division, 12 games out of the playoffs.

They finished with the fourth worst record in the league, and in the Draft Lottery, won the opportunity to select first overall in the draft, whereas the team had never had a draft pick higher than 3rd overall. They used the pick to draft center Patrick Kane from the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League.

On 26 September 2007 after a brief battle with cancer, longtime owner Wirtz died at age 77. During a tribute and moment of silence for him during the Blackhawks home opener on 8 October 2007, the Chicago crowd displayed their displeasure with Wirtz's operation of the organization by booing the proceedings.

On 22 October 2007, Rocky Wirtz, Bill's son and the new chairman of the Chicago Blackhawks, announced the team is in negotiations with Comcast Sports Net Chicago to begin televising home games beginning on November 11th. This is something that his father had refused his entire time as team president. On November 20, 2007 Rockwell Wirtz named former Chicago Cubs President John McDonough as the new Blackhawks president. McDonough was the architect of the Cubs' incredible marketing machine established in the 1980's and 1990's.

**WIKIPEDIA.ORG