Chicago Blackhawks

Chicago Blackhawks

McLaughlin had really worked very hard for the development of the team, despite the fact that he had no clear understanding of the sport. He had served as his own general manager during the time, he had owned the team. He had a great interest in the promotion of American hockey players, which was not a very popular trend at the time. There were many great names like Doc Romnes, Taffy Abel, Alex Levinsky, Mike Karakas, Cully Dahlstrom and others, become attached with the club, and under McLaughlin, the Black Hawks were the first NHL team to field an all-American-born lineup. The Hawks' had a fair one first season and finished near the top of the league's scoring race. The Black Hawks had lost their 1927 first-round playoff series to the Boston Bruins, who had made the playoffs for the first time ever. It is interesting that the Blackhawks were recognized as the worst team in the NHL at that time.

In 1926, Chicago Black Hawks became the part of National Hockey League as an expansion franchise. The same year two other expansion franchises that joined the league as well were, Detroit Red Wings and the New York Rangers. Initially the team was officially named the Chicago Black Hawks, and it kept on using that name till 1986. However in 1986 it was made official that the team would now be using the single word version that is Blackhawks instead of Black Hawk, so since then team is known as Chicago Blackhawks.

The history of the team’s name draws back to World War I, when the owner of the franchise, Frederic McLaughlin, 333rd Machine Gun Battalion named Blackhawk Division. So that is why McLaughlin named the franchise in honor of his unit. The Unit was named Blackhawk after Chief Black Hawk, who was a Native American, which is why team uses Native American as its logo.

McLaughlin himself took the charge of the team as its General Manager, while he hired Pete Muldoon as the first head coach of the team. 1926-27 was the teams first season, which it finished with a mild success. Since the team lost its playoff series to a team that made it to the playoffs for the first time, Boston Bruins, the Blackhawks were cited as the worst team of that time. Blackhawks finished its 1926-27 season with a third position in its division. McLaughlin was of the view that team could have finished first but Muldoon disagreed with his perspective, which is why McLaughlin fired Muldoon. Pete Muldoon is better known for his curse that he reportedly put on Blackhawks that it shall never finish at the first position. The curse theory, however, was made by a Canadian Sports writer, so the certainty of this event is unknown.

The following season, Blackhawks finished with the worst record in the league history; however in 1931 their performance improved a bit as they Blackhawks were able to make it in to the Stanley Cup Final.

Blackhawks won its very first Stanley Cup in 1933-34 season after defeating Detroit Red Wings. Although Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup, but in their Divisional Standings Blackhawks were positioned 2nd with 20 wins while Detroit Red Wings were first with 24 wins.

The Stanley Cup win came to the Blackhawks in 1938, as they made it in to the playoffs, and defeated Montreal Canadiens and New York Americans in deciding semi final games, by scoring goals in overtime. As the team made it in to the finals, Blackhawks were facing Toronto Maple Leafs. And even though with a perhaps while having scoring the poorest regular season record, Blackhawks became the first team to win Stanley Cup with such a poor regular season record.

For more information about Chicago Blackhawks Visit: http://www.chicago-black-hawks.com/

About the Author:
Peter Cohen calls Boston home and graduated from Brandeis University. He considers travel to be the love of his life and has already traveled to 5 different continents. He also has a passion for languages and has studied Arabic, German and Russian. While devoting his working life to writing for lifestyle magazines, he also takes out time for occasional event reviews.