Chicago Blackhawks

Encyclopedia : C : CH : CHI : Chicago Blackhawks

For other uses of Blackhawk/Black Hawk, see Black Hawk.

The Chicago Blackhawks are a professional ice hockey team based in Chicago, Illinois. They play in the National Hockey League (NHL). The team's name was spelled Black Hawks before the 1986 NHL season.

Facts

Founded: 1926

Home arena: United Center

:Former Home Arenas: Chicago Coliseum (1926-1928); Chicago Stadium (1929-1994)

Uniform colors: Red and black

Logo design: Indian's head in profile.

Mascot: Tommy the Hawk

Main Rivals: St. Louis Blues, Detroit Red Wings

Stanley Cup Champions: 3 — 1933-34, 1937-38, 1960-61

:Runner-up: 7 — 1930-31, 1943-44, 1961-62, 1964-65, 1970-71, 1972-73, 1991-92

League Champions (and Presidents' Trophy winner after 1985-86): 3 — 1966-67, 1969-70, 1990-91

Conference Champions (since 1974-75): 1 — 1991-92

Division Champions (between 1926-27-1937-38 and since 1967-68): 13

:East Division: 1 — 1969-70

:West Division: 3 — 1970-71, 1971-72, 1972-73

:Smythe Division: 4 — 1975-76, 1977-78, 1978-79, 1979-80

:Norris Division: 5 — 1982-83, 1985-86, 1989-90, 1990-91, 1992-93

One of the NHL's Original Six franchises, along with the Boston Bruins, Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers, and Toronto Maple Leafs.

Franchise history

Beginnings

First logo of the Black Hawks, used until 1935.

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

The name of the team refers to Chief Black Hawk, a prominent figure in the history of Illinois, and is 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 spelling based on finding the original franchise documents had that spelling.

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 Hawks lost their 1927 first-round playoff series to the Boston Bruins. Following this series, McLaughlin fired head coach Pete Muldoon. According to Jim Coleman, a sportswriter for the Toronto Globe and Mail, Muldoon declared that because of McLaughlin's treachery, "The Black Hawks will never finish first!" At the time, finishing in first place was considered to be as much of an achievement as winning the Stanley Cup. 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-division or a single-league format.

The Hawks proceeded to have the worst record in the league in 1927-28. By 1931 the Hawks reached their first Stanley Cup finals with goal-scorer Johnny Gottselig, Cy Wentworth on defense 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.

The Black Hawks won their first Stanley Cup in 1934 (over the Detroit Red Wings) with Charlie Gardiner's 1.73 goals-against average and Paul Thompson's 20 goals. Sadly, Gardiner died of a tonsil infection two months after the season ended.

Logo used (1938-1955)

After Chicago floundered over the next three years, they were thought to be a laughingstock in 1938 and only barely made the playoffs. They stunned the Montreal Canadiens and New York Americans on overtime goals in the deciding games of both series, advancing to the Stanley Cup finals against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Black Hawks goalie Mike Karakas was injured and couldn't play in the finals. A desperate team pulled minor-leaguer Alfie Moore out of a Toronto bar and onto the ice. In the two games Moore played, he only allowed two goals before Karakas was healthy enough to play again. 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 finals in 1944 behind Doug Bentley and Bill Mosienko's 30-goal seasons and their linemate Clint Smith leading the league in assists. After upsetting the Detroit Red Wings in the semi-finals, they were promptly dispatched by the juggernaut Montreal Canadiens in four games. Mosienko still holds the record for quickest hat trick (in 21 seconds) in the NHL.

Owner Frederic McLaughlin died in 1944, leaving the Hawks with virtually no leadership. By the 1950s the team was close to bankruptcy.

For the next several years, Chicago was the model of futility in the NHL. Between 1945 and 1958, they only made the playoffs twice.

Arthur Wirtz and James D. Norris took control of the financially strapped team in the early 1950's, guided it through financial reverses and rebuilt the team from there. One of their first moves was to hire Tommy Ivan as general manager.

In the late 1950s, the Hawks struck gold, picking up young stars Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita and defenseman Pierre Pilote, as well as obtaining star goaltender Glenn Hall from Detroit. All four would become great stars, and 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 Detroit Red Wings to win their third and most recent Stanley Cup championship. Hull's grand success that appeared invincible in his prime, earned him a well-deserved place, 25 years after he retired, in Hockey Superstars: All-Time Greats! by former sportscaster Paul Romanuk.

The Hawks made the finals twice more in the 1960s, losing both times: to the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1962 and Montreal Canadiens in 1965. Chicago remained a force to be reckoned with throughout the decade, with Bobby Hull's four 50-goal seasons in the decade, 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 straight seasons.

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 the Stanley Cup Semifinals to the Toronto Maple Leafs, who went on to win the Stanley Cup called "a bunch of has-beans". Afterward, sportswriter Jim 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 in 1967, and by 1969 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 Phil 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 years, Esposito, Hodge, and Stanfield would lead the Bruins to the top of the league for several years and capture two Stanley Cups. As a Bruin, Phil Esposito set numerous scoring records and wound up as one of the NHL's all-time greats elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

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 division 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 defensemen Pat Stapleton and Bill White, the Hawks reached the Stanley Cup Finals before bowing out to the Canadiens.

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, also jumped, and the pair became two of the WHA's great stars. The Hawks repeated their appearance in Cup finals that year, however, again losing to Montreal. Stapleton left for the WHA as well after that year, depleting the team further.

1. 35 Goaltender Tony Esposito

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 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 team 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 St. Louis Blues in the playoffs before losing to another surprise team, the Vancouver Canucks. Chicago proved they were no fluke the next season, also making the third round before losing to the Stanley Cup Champion Edmonton Oilers. After an off-year in 1984, the Hawks again faced Edmonton 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 always been printing it and as the team had always officially listed it. The name officially became "Chicago Blackhawks" from that point forward.

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.

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 Finals in the rookie season of both goalie Ed Belfour and center Jeremy Roenick. Once again though, they would fail to make the Stanley Cup finals, 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 Edmonton Oilers. 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 Finals appearance.

In 1992 the Blackhawks, with Roenick scoring 53 goals, Chris Chelios (acquired from Montreal two years previously) on defense, and Belfour in goal, finally reached the final round. They were no match for Mario Lemieux and the Pittsburgh Penguins, losing in four straight games.

Belfour posted a 40-win season in 1993 as the Hawks looked to go deep yet again, but the St. Louis Blues 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 Nichols and Joe Murphy both scored 20 goals over 48 games, and Chicago once again made it to the Western Conference Finals, losing to the 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 history.

The 21st century

Chicago's alternate logo; two tomahawks crossing each other atop a "C".

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 4 straight years until they took a quick first-round exit in 2002.

Amonte left for Phoenix in the summer of 2002, and Chicago missed the playoffs again in 2003.

Following the lockout of the 2004-2005 season, new General Manager 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 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). A somber note was struck in February of 2004, when ESPN named the Blackhawks the worst franchise in professional sports [link].

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 for a 26th year, a move [unpopular] amongst most Blackhawks fans.

Despite GM Tallon's desperate moves, the Blackhawks finished 14th in the Western Conference in 2005-06. Their reward? They picked up talented young forward Jonathan Toews third overall in the 2006 NHL Entry Draft.

Tallon made another step in the right direction on July 11th, 2006, when the Blackhawks acquired LW Martin Havlat and C Bryan Smolinski from the Ottawa Senators in a three team deal that involved the San Jose Sharks. The 'Hawks dealt Mark Bell to the Sharks, Michal Barinka and a 2008 2nd round draft pick to the Senators, while Ottawa also received defenseman Tom Preissing and center Josh Hennessey from San Jose. Havlat gives them the talented, 1st-line caliber gamebreaker they so desperately needed.

Nevertheless, the team has still not won the Cup since 1961, the longest drought of any current NHL team. (The current Ottawa Senators franchise began play in 1992, named for a team that folded in 1934 and last won the Cup in 1927.)

Season-by-Season Record

¹ Season was shortened due to the 1994-95 NHL lockout.

² Season was cancelled due to the 2004-05 NHL lockout.