Portland Winterhawks Tickets

Based in Portland, Oregon, The Portland Winterhawks are a major junior ice hockey team, which plays in the WHL, the Western Hockey League. The WHL comes under the umbrella of the Canadian Hockey League. Their home arena is the Memorial Coliseum, though they also play a few home games at the Rose Garden, which neighbors the Coliseum. The team has produced some outstanding NHL players, who started their junior careers here and later joined major NHL franchises in America. So if you are a hockey fan and want to see the cream of junior hockey players, buy Portland Winterhawks tickets now.

A reincarnation of the famous Edmonton Oil Kings, the team was formed in 1951and actually predates the founding of the Western Hockey League. They moved to Portland in the 1976-77 season, where they became the Portland Winter Hawks. However in 2007 the franchise decided to remove the space, by “retiring it”, and they became the Winterhawks. The mascot of the team is Tom-A-Hawk, a white bird with multi colored wing and tail feathers. He was introduced during the 1999-2000 season and supports the jersey number 00.

Starting off as the Edmonton Oil Kings, the team found success hard to come by early on, but gradually the hard work paid off as they went on to win the President’s Cup three times and the Memorial Cup two times in just four appearances. While playing as the Oil Kings, they had made it to the finals nine times, in which they won the cup twice and were runners up seven times. On the 12^th of May, 2013, the team ironically defeated The Edmonton Oil Kings 5-1 in game 6 to become the 2012–13 season WHL Champions.

Throughout their colorful history, the Winterhawks have brought about many innovations to ice hockey.  They were one of the pioneers of marketing and promotions and can be credited with introducing “Dash for Cash”, a sort of contest in which contestants are chosen to run on the ice rink and pick up as many silver dollars as they can in two minutes. This is very popular amongst the fans who actively participate in it.

Another interesting promotion takes place around November when the team holds in annual Teddy Bear toss. It might sound funny, but is actually for a good cause. The fans have to bring teddy bears to the arena and throw them on the ice rink when Portland scores its first goal. The bears are then collected and donated to local charities for children. More than 22,000 teddy bears were thrown on 6^th December, 2008 after Portland scored its opener via Luke Walker.

Among the many famous NHL alumni that the Winterhawks have produced, perhaps the most famous are Cam Neely and Mark Messier, both of whom were inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Currently the President’s Cup Champions, the team has right to call themselves as the best. So come support the current best junior team out there and buy Portland Winterhawks tickets now.