Chicago Blackhawks

Awarded in 1926, built in a stadium with an organ

The franchise was granted on 15 May 1926 and played its first NHL season in 1926–27, starting out at the Chicago Coliseum before moving into Chicago Stadium in 1929. Frederic McLaughlin, the coffee magnate who founded the club, was still in charge when it won the Stanley Cup in 1933–34 and again in 1937–38.

When the NHL contracted to six clubs, Chicago was one of them, and the Original Six label — alongside Montreal, Toronto, Detroit, Boston and the New York Rangers — is still the frame through which most of the club's history is told. The centenary of that first NHL game falls on 17 November 2026, and the club has built a home fixture around it.

Hull, Mikita and forty-nine years of waiting

The 1960–61 championship side was carried by Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita up front, Pierre Pilote on the blue line and Glenn Hall in goal. It was also, for a very long time, the last one. Chicago reached finals and lost them, and the gap between titles stretched to forty-nine years.

Part of the reason the club drifted out of the city's attention was self-inflicted: under Bill Wirtz, home games were not televised locally, on the theory that broadcasts cannibalised gate receipts. When Rocky Wirtz took over in 2007 he reversed the policy, and the rebuild that followed had two draft picks at its centre — Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane.

Three Cups in six years, then the bill

The club had moved across Madison Street into the United Center for 1994–95, sharing the building with the Bulls. The trophies arrived there in 2010, 2013 and 2015, three championships in six seasons off a core that had been assembled cheaply and then became expensive.

Rocky Wirtz died in 2023 and his son Danny took over the ownership side. Kyle Davidson, running hockey operations, had by then committed to a full teardown. The reward came in 2023, when Chicago won the draft lottery and selected Connor Bedard first overall.

Bottom three, three years running

The 2025–26 season, the club's centennial year, finished 29–39–14 for 72 points: eighth in the Central Division, fifteenth in the Western Conference, 213 goals scored against 275 conceded, and a home record of 14–19–8. Elimination came on 2 April 2026 after a defeat to Edmonton, a sixth straight season without playoff hockey.

It was also a third consecutive finish in the bottom three of the league standings, something no club had managed since Tampa Bay between 1998 and 2001. Scoring was the specific failure — 2.56 goals per game, tied for 30th.

There were individual bright spots inside the wreckage. Bedard led the team with 73 points, 30 goals and 43 assists. Tyler Bertuzzi scored 32. Spencer Knight took 18 wins in goal and Drew Commesso posted a 2.31 goals-against average behind him. Anton Frondell, the 2025 first-round pick, made his NHL debut on 24 March 2026. Nick Foligno wore the captain's C from 7 October until 6 March, after which the role sat vacant with Bedard and Bertuzzi as alternates.

The summer the rebuild stopped hoarding

Davidson spent. Bowen Byram arrived from Buffalo for the fourth and 45th picks and defenceman Louis Crevier. Roman Kantserov, a second-round pick from 2023, came over from the KHL. Jordan Greenway, Ian Cole and Cole Smith filled out the depth. And on 23 July 2026 Patrick Kane signed a two-year deal worth $16 million, returning at 37 after three seasons in Detroit to the club where he won all three of his Cups.

Bedard signed a five-year extension at a $15 million cap hit that runs through 2030–31. Then he hurt his left shoulder at a practice in Vancouver on 2 July and had surgery; a four-month estimate issued on 8 July pointed to an early-November return, and by mid-September he said he had cleared every hurdle so far without committing to a date. On 15 September he was named the 37th captain in club history.

Training camp opened on 17 September with roughly fifty players split immediately into NHL and non-NHL groups — a compressed camp, because the league has expanded to an 84-game regular season. Jeff Blashill, in his second year as head coach, put Kantserov and Frank Nazar either side of Kane on the opening top line, paired Byram with Alex Vlasic, and talked about wanting possession and, in his word, swagger. Kane's reaction to the first team meeting was that it left him wanting to run through a wall. The season opened on 29 September at Vegas.

What the building is actually like

The United Center holds 19,717 with standing room for roughly another 3,000, and its angled steel panels were designed to bounce noise back into the bowl in imitation of the old Chicago Stadium. Six Stanley Cup banners hang above, retired numbers beside them, and statues of Hull and Mikita stand outside.

Two rituals define the night. The crowd roars through the entire national anthem rather than standing in silence, a habit traced to a 1985 playoff game against Edmonton and now carried by tenor Jim Cornelison. And since 2008–09, every goal and every home win is followed by The Fratellis' 'Chelsea Dagger', which the crowd sings back.

The club moved its start times earlier for 2026–27 after surveying ticket buyers: 83% wanted weeknight starts at 7pm or earlier, so 19 of 23 non-holiday weeknight home games now begin at or before 7pm, against four of 26 last season, and 11 of 19 weekend and holiday games are matinees.

Despite the standings, attendance averaged 18,949 in 2025–26, fifth in the NHL, with 18 sellouts and a post-Thanksgiving average of 19,440. Bedard's own read on it was that the fans stayed behind a team that had missed the playoffs for years, across all 41 home dates. The centennial nights drew above 20,300, which is exactly the caveat: the novelty is spent now, and the crowd figure becomes a question about the hockey.