Three NHL clubs reach their 100th birthday this fall: the Blackhawks Rangers and Red Wings Turn 100. The Chicago Blackhawks, the Detroit Red Wings and the New York Rangers all joined the league for the 1926–27 season. Chicago played its first game on November 17, 1926, and Detroit followed a day later. All three ran centennial programs a year early, during 2025–26, but the real anniversary of those first games lands this November.
Most of us follow the league through a phone now. One app for scores, another for clips, and a platform like Longfu88 for the downtime. The sweaters have changed a lot since 1926. How these three teams showed up in a single summer is still worth a look.
Three teams in one summer
Before 1926 the NHL had seven clubs. After it, ten. The jump came from a collapse somewhere else. The Western Hockey League, the last real rival for top talent, folded in May 1926. Its players were suddenly for sale, and the Patrick brothers, Lester and Frank, sold the rosters off in batches.
Chicago bought the Portland Rosebuds. A Detroit group bought the Victoria Cougars, who had won the Stanley Cup in 1925. New York shopped in the same market. The league split into two five-team divisions, Canadian and American, and the Stanley Cup, once fought over by teams from several leagues, now belonged to the NHL alone.
Chicago: a major, a division and a name
Chicago’s first owner, Frederic McLaughlin, made his money in coffee, and people kept calling him Major long after the war ended. During it he had served with an infantry division that the army nicknamed after Black Hawk, a Sauk leader. When his own team needed a name, he reused that one. The players came from the Portland Rosebuds, a package that cost $100,000.
The Black Hawks (two words until 1986) opened at the Chicago Coliseum. They went 19–22–3 in that first season.
Detroit: the Cougars who played in Canada
Detroit’s arena was not finished, so the Cougars spent the first season in Windsor, Ontario, at Border Cities Arena. The opener on November 18, 1926 was a 2–0 loss to Boston. The first win came six days later, 1–0 on the road in Chicago.
The year ended at 12–28–4. Twenty-eight points is still the lowest total in franchise history.
Olympia Stadium opened the next season. The team became the Falcons in 1930 and the Red Wings in 1932, when James Norris took over. Norris had played for the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association, and its winged wheel became the club’s logo.
New York: Tex’s Rangers
Tex Rickard, the boxing promoter who ran Madison Square Garden, wanted a hockey team in the building. The papers called the new club “Tex’s Rangers,” and the shorter name stuck.
Conn Smythe was brought in to build the roster, but he was gone before the season started. Lester Patrick took over behind the bench and in the front office. The Rangers went 25–13–6, finished first in the American Division, and Bill Cook led the league in scoring.
The Cup came in their second season. In the 1928 Final against the Montreal Maroons, goalie Lorne Chabot got hurt, and Patrick, 44 years old, put on the pads himself. The Rangers won that game 2–1 in overtime and took the series.
What a century left behind
Each club ended up in a different place. Here is where they stand now:
- Rangers: four Cups, the latest in 1994, playing at the fourth Madison Square Garden.
- Blackhawks: six Cups, the latest in 2015, at the United Center.
- Red Wings: eleven Cups, the latest in 2008, at Little Caesars Arena.
Half of the Original Six
The Original Six era ran from 1942 to 1967. These three clubs make up half of it, next to Montreal, Toronto and Boston. Those other three already had their centennial displays at the Hockey Hall of Fame, in 2009, 2017 and 2023.
Chicago, Detroit and New York now have theirs. The Hall’s Triple Centennial Exhibit stays open through January 2027, with artifacts running from the 1926–27 season to today. The Blackhawks have also said their centennial wraps up with a fan event this fall, built around the anniversary of that first game.