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.
In 1992 the Blackhawks, with Roenick scoring 53 goals, Chris Chelios
(acquired from Montreal two years previously) on defense, and Belfour
and future superstar Dominik Hasek splitting the goaltending duties,
finally reached the final round. They were no match for Mario Lemieux
and the Pittsburgh Penguins, losing in 4 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. Eric Daze,
Alexei Zhamnov, Tony Amonte, and goalie Jocelyn Thibault emerged as
three 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.
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.