Blackhawks to celebrate 2025-26 centennial season in four chapters
The Blackhawks will celebrate their 100 years of history by dividing it into four chapters during their 2025-26 centennial season, the team announced Tuesday.
The stories of the four chapters of franchise history — titled "The Originals," "The Madhouse," "The Banner Years" and "The Next Originals" — will each be told over a couple months during the season, leading up to a capstone game for each chapter with pomp and circumstance comparable to a jersey retirement night.
"We really started planning for this year about three years ago," Hawks business president Jaime Faulkner said. "The place where we started was, 'What do we actually want to celebrate? What do we think our fans want to celebrate? And what do we think our alumni want to celebrate?'
"In addition to...celebrating incredible on-ice parts of our history, we also decided we wanted to celebrate the Blackhawks' contributions to the game of hockey and the city of Chicago, because there are so many examples of that. And then we wanted to end the season actually looking forward and getting fans excited about what is coming."
The "Originals" capstone game will be Nov. 15 against the Maple Leafs, the "Madhouse" capstone game will be Dec. 13 against the Red Wings, the "Banner Years" capstone game will be Jan. 17 against the Bruins and the "Next Originals" capstone game will be March 6 against the Canucks.
Each capstone game will feature not only a pregame ceremony but also physical artifacts on display in the atrium and conversations with former players from that era. The Hawks will also honor their first Hall of Fame class on a to-be-announced date.
After a few years of limited giveaways, the team has an enormous 17 giveaways planned for this season, although five will be atrium-only. There will be seven bobblehead giveaway nights: Stan Mikita (Oct. 17), Tony Esposito (Nov. 15), Denis Savard (Nov. 23), Chris Chelios (Dec. 13), Brent Seabrook (Jan. 4), Duncan Keith (Jan. 17) and team mascot Tommy Hawk (March 6).
Despite the team's lack of on-ice success in recent years and oddsmakers' low expectations for them this season, Faulkner said season-ticket sales remain strong, fueled by the centennial celebrations and the arrival of many homegrown prospects.