Blackhawks enter Centennial recalling 'generous applause' in 1st NHL game

The New York Rangers, Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks are each celebrating their Centennial seasons in 2025-26 with special jerseys and nights throughout the season. To mark the special seasons for each of the three teams, NHL.com columnist Dave Stubbs is taking a look at each team's first NHL game. Here, a look at the Blackhawks' first game against the Toronto St. Patricks on Nov. 17, 1926:

It was the first of the Chicago Blackhawks’ 2,914 regular-season wins to date, a 4-1 home-ice victory on Nov. 17, 1926 against the Toronto St. Patricks.

Beginning their second century, the Blackhawks will try for win No. 2,915 on Tuesday, on the road against the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers (5 p.m. ET, ESPN, SN1, TVAS).

The Windy City was abuzz in 1926, the new team lining up at Chicago Coliseum for the Blackhawks’ first NHL game six months after coffee baron Major Frederic B. McLaughlin and his syndicate of businessmen had relocated the Western Hockey League’s Portland Rosebuds.

The team would be known as the Black Hawks, taking the name of the U.S. Army’s 86th, or Black Hawk, Infantry Division in Europe, commanded by McLaughlin during the First World War.

Drawn portrait of Major Frederic McLaughlin, owner of the Chicago Black Hawks from their inception in 1926-27 until his death in December 1944. This photo of the illustration was taken on Jan. 3, 1949.

From the team’s first day, the name flipped back and forth between Blackhawks and Black Hawks, the two-word version on the crest of the first sweaters. The franchise would officially be branded Blackhawks in 1981.

“Professional hockey will make its bow to Chicago tomorrow night. The Chicago Blackhawks will usher in the national professional league season playing the Toronto St. Patricks on the new artificial rink at the Coliseum,” began a Nov. 16 Associated Press report.

“The men assembled by manager (coach) Pete Muldoon are among the best-known players in the game. The starting lineup for the first battle will probably be composed of Hugh Lehman at goal, Gordon Frazer and Bobb Trapp at defense positions, and Mickey MacKay, Babe Dye and George Hay at forward positions.”

An Oct. 15, 1926 report in the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix declared that the Blackhawks, preparing to open training camp in Minneapolis on Nov. 3, “will be a good team. Pete Muldoon will see to that.”

Newspaper stories previewed and covered the first game of Chicago’s new NHL franchise.

At that time, Chicago’s opening-game opponent wasn’t yet known.

“Now, Pete is not a society man, but he knows all about it. Therefore, he will have one of the best Canadian teams on hand to test the Blackhawks’ ability, or lack of it,” the newspaper said. “Pete has been in the hockey racket for more than 30 years and it goes without saying that he knows the game.”

Hockey had been nearly invisible in Chicago for about a decade, thus the city’s excitement when the fledgling franchise was among five teams in the NHL’s American Division, five others in the Canadian Division.

“The last real attempt to rally the sport was in 1917, when the Great Lakes Naval Training station mustered a squad and played a few games at the Broadway arena, now the Broadway armory,” wrote Frank Schreiber in the Chicago Tribune three days before the Blackhawks’ opener.

The architecturally beautiful Chicago Coliseum

McLaughlin and his syndicate installed an ice-making plant and rink floor in the Coliseum, purchasing the entire roster of the WHL Rosebuds as the building’s NHL tenant.

Proceeds from the first game were earmarked for the Chicago Junior league, the 8,000-seat Coliseum welcoming a nearly full house for the Blackhawks’ maiden start.

“All of the choice box seats around the rink have been sold for more than a fortnight,” Schreiber wrote, “and when the advance sale of tickets was halted yesterday afternoon, only a few of the 8,000 seats in the arena remained unsold.”

The Blackhawks sent the crowd home happy.

The 1926-27 Chicago Black Hawks

They jumped out to a 2-0 first-period lead on goals by George Hay and captain Dick Irvin Sr., the latter a future coach of the team who from behind the bench would guide the Toronto Maple Leafs, successor of the St. Patricks, to the 1932 Stanley Cup championship, then the Montreal Canadiens to titles in 1944, 1946 and 1953.

Toronto’s Hap Day made It 2-1 midway through the second period, his shot eluding Lehman, before Gord Fraser and Charley McVeigh, the latter beating the St. Patricks’ John Ross Roach late in the third period, closed out the scoring.

Referee Cooper Smeaton called 15 penalty minutes against Toronto, 12 against Chicago; St. Patricks defenseman Bert Corbeau racked up nine of his team’s minutes on a major that earned him a $10 fine and two minors.

“There were cheers from the time the game started until the final whistle,” Schreiber reported in the Tribune’s Nov. 18 edition.

Goalie Hugh Lehman and forward Dick Irvin Sr., the latter serving as the first captain of the Black Hawks. He would go on to coach the team, then the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens.

“There was action in every period and the fans, many of them watching their first hockey match, greeted the efforts of the players with generous applause. … The Blackhawks earned their victory in clean-cut manner, scoring two goals in the first period and then covering up and protecting their lead. …

“The play of the rival goalkeepers, Lehman for Chicago and Roach for Toronto, furnished the biggest thrill of the evening. Time after time these two heavily padded warriors of the ice beat off attacks of their enemy forwards, and many times they seized the puck in midair with their hands or batted it back into center ice with their broad-bladed sticks.”

Each goalie was credited with 36 saves.

Schreiber went on to report that the teams “fought hard, but neither displayed more than an average attack or defense. As it was the first contest of the season, many substitutions were made, as the men are not in their best condition. The softening of the ice in the second period made skating harder than in the first and third sessions, when the ice-making plant was going at top speed.”

John Ross Roach, here in 1930 as a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs, was in goal for the St. Patricks against Chicago in the latter’s historic first game. At right, a Chicago Daily News story previews the game.

The Blackhawks would finish third in the American Division, eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs with a quarterfinal loss to the Boston Bruins.

Chicago would embrace its new team, but only loosely to start. It wasn’t long before the Blackhawks were playing in front of many empty seats at the Coliseum, so McLaughlin bought blocks of shares from syndicate members until he was majority owner, then moved the team to Chicago Stadium when the cavernous arena opened in December 1929, his personal investment of $600,000 helping to finance construction.

The Blackhawks again were the hottest ticket in town until fans, and the world, were dramatically impacted by the Great Depression. McLaughlin kept his dream and his team afloat only when he borrowed money from Joseph Cattarinich, an affluent horseman and co-owner of the rival Canadiens.

Against long odds, McLaughlin’s Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup in 1934 and again in 1938, the first two of the six won to date by the franchise.

The official NHL scoresheet of the Nov. 17, 1926 games between the Chicago Black Hawks and visiting Toronto St. Patricks.

Of course, those championships weren’t on the horizon on Nov. 17, 1926, Chicago happy just to have the game back in town -- even if it confounded more than a few of the 28 newspapermen assigned to cover the opener, only three having previously seen hockey.

The best observation of the lot surely was offered by Albon Holden of the Chicago Journal.

“Joe Foley, my sporting editor, sent me down to the Coliseum to write about hockey. I am a faithful slave, and I try to do my best, considering the circumstances,” Holden wrote.

“But Joe, my experience has been as a football referee, scout and reporter and in my day, I have done a bit of basketball. Football and basketball, I thought, were games of speed. But having seen a bit of hockey, I don’t want you to send me to the Coliseum anymore. It was too fast for me.”

Top photo: the franchise-first game of the Chicago Black Hawks (often called the Blackhawks) was a front-page banner headline in the Nov. 18, 1926 Chicago Daily Tribune.