Portland Winter Hawks Tickets

Portland Winter Hawks
Members of the Western Hockey League namely the Portland Winter Hawks, is also a member league in the Canadian Hockey League and the highest level of non-professional hockey in the world. The team has been in Portland since 1976-77 when the team moved from Edmonton. Previous-Owner Brian Shaw was the founder in many facets of Junior Hockey.

He only helped in shifting the team to the United States for the first time, but also is accredited with designing the present CHL championship format of the champion from each of the three leagues (WHL, OHL, and QMJHL) as well as a host-city team opposing for the Memorial Cup. Portland won the Memorial Cup in 1983 and 1998. They play their home games at the Rose Garden Arena, and the old Memorial Coliseum.

The Winter Hawks were also forerunners of promotion and are credited with the discovery of the Dash for Cash where competitors are picked to run onto the ice and try to scoop up as many silver dollars in 2 minutes as they could. This popular promotion has been running for many years. In addition, in late November/early December, they hold their annual teddy bear toss, which fans throw teddy bears on the ice.

Beforehand, the team was recognized as the Edmonton Oil Kings. While in Edmonton, the team won the Memorial Cup twice and was runner-up seven times.

The Winter Hawks wear jerseys similar to those of the Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League, resulting in specious assumption that the Winter Hawks are a minor league farm team of the Blackhawks. In authenticity, the jerseys initially worn by the first Winter Hawks team were a used set of Chicago jerseys obtained through connections between the owners of the two teams. In early pictures, the old Chicago jerseys are recognized by the letter ?C' with crossed tomahawks on the shoulder crest. The Winter Hawks ultimately changed the ?C' to a ?P'. The Winter Hawks also presently wear an exclusive alternate jersey, which is black with a red and white Portland skyline and the word PORTLAND around the bottom hem.

Another reason why their Portland-Chicago connection runs deeper is that the Blackhawks were founded in 1926 by Frederic McLaughlin, who merely bought the contracts of most of the members of the Portland Rosebuds and brought them to Chicago.

The name Winter Hawks was taken up from a movie called Winterhawk. Team owner Brian Shaw really liked the idea of taking it up as the name, but decided it would be two words.

The team mascot is a white bird - Tom-A-Hawk, with multicolored tail and wing feathers. Tom-A-Hawk was introduced in 1999-2000. He wears jersey number 00. Tom-A-Hawk's main rival is Cool Bird of the Seattle Thunderbirds.'

In 2006, the team was sold to ex-minor league baseball player James Goldsmith, and ex-major league baseball player Jack Donovan.

The first three seasons were very thorny in Portland. In spite of good, competitive hockey teams, there was scarcity of a huge audience gathering up in Memorial Coliseum. The team was facing major loss and several of the original investors from Edmonton pulled out when the situation worsened. But Shaw, Hodge and Mackie never drowned their faith in the team and believed wholeheartedly in the team's potential. The three musketeers stayed strong and waited for Portland fans to discover the enthusiasm of junior hockey.

According to Hodge, We raised our level of communication - and we communicated without a lot of words. We had a very good understanding of one another - and we went through some very difficult times in our early years in Portland. There were times when we didn't know if we had enough money to bring the bus home. We had a good, solid relationship. Relationships are built on trust - and we trusted one another.

That trust was only broken one time; back in the early years of the Winter Hawks. During the 1977-78 season, on an off night in Lethbridge, Mackie went out to do the team laundry and ended up having a couple of beers with several players.

At the time, I was about the same age as the players - and I had known them as friends and even played hockey with some of them. I should have been smart enough to know there is a fine line between being a staff member and getting too close to the players.

I had to fire him, added Hodge. I really didn't have any options there. I was told to do it because somebody else [Shaw] didn't want to. I can't remember if he was fired for two hours, four hours or a half-a-day, but during this other person's cooling off period, I convinced him to rehire Innes. Eventually, that other person did the rehiring.

They remained together in other times of contention. From 1987 to 1991, the Hawks had terrible teams ? missing out on the playoffs three or four seasons, which turned out to be a major disappointment for the Portlander fans, who had become habituated to the winning custom established by the Buckaroos and the early years of the Winter Hawks. Hodge became an easy target for the fans. It even came to the point where petitions were being carried out among the Coliseum crowd to have Ken withdrawn from the coach's position. Openly, though, Shaw took most of the criticism for the Hawks' poor on- ice record and deflected any blame from Hodge.

Hodge further commented I appreciated what Brian did, but I didn't really feel it was necessary,. My record spoke for itself through the good seasons and Brian knew a coaching change might have injected some short term life into the team, but it would not solve the problem long term.

We didn't have a very good product on the ice. We had some very good people that were not necessarily very good athletes. Some of the problems with the product were Brian's fault and some were my fault. Brian did take a lot of the heat.

Shaw's passing in 1994 was clearly an emotional time for Hodge and Mackie. The three musketeers had remained together through thick and thin. They always stuck together even though many times they agreed to disagree. It's very obvious to anyone who has worked in this office or is in any way connected with the Portland Winter Hawks that Brian's sense of loyalty was tremendous, noted Hodge. His sense of loyalty was unwavering and nothing got in the way. Not dollars. Not wins. Nothing gets in front of loyalty.