Curse of Muldoon

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The Curse of Muldoon was a phenomenon that supposedly prevented the Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League from finishing in first place, either in their division or, from 1938 to 1967, in the single-division NHL. It may have been the first public example of a curse on a major-league sports franchise.

The Hawks' first season, 1926-27, was a moderate success, with the forward line of Mickey MacKay, Babe Dye, and Dick Irvin each finishing near the top of the league's scoring race. The Hawks lost their 1927 first-round playoff series to the Boston Bruins. Following this series, team owner Frederic McLaughlin fired head coach Pete Muldoon.

Jim Coleman, a sportswriter for the Toronto Globe and Mail wrote in 1943 that the reason for Muldoon's firing boiled down to a heated end-of-season argument with McLaughlin. As the story goes, McLaughlin felt that the Black Hawks were good enough to finish first in the American Division. Muldoon disagreed, and McLaughlin fired him. Muldoon supposedly responded, "Fire me, Major, and you'll never finish first. I'll put a curse on this team that will hoodoo it until the end of time."

At the time, finishing in first place was considered to be as much of an achievement as winning the Stanley Cup. While the team would win the Stanley Cup in 1934 (defeating the Detroit Red Wings in the Finals), 1938 (defeating the Toronto Maple Leafs) and 1961 (again defeating the Red Wings), they would do so without having finished in first place either in a multi-division or a single-league format.

In 1967, the last season of the six-team NHL, the Hawks finished first, breaking the supposed Curse of Muldoon, 23 years after the death of McLaughlin. However, they lost the Stanley Cup Semifinals to the Maple Leafs. Afterward, sportswriter Jim Coleman, who first printed the story of the curse in 1943, admitted that he made the story up to break a writer's block he had as a column deadline approached.

By this point, with three Stanley Cups and a status as a perennial contender to their credit, the idea of a curse preventing the team from finishing first seemed an entertaining frivolity to Hawks fans. Since their 1961 Stanley Cup, the Blackhawks have finished first in their Division (single-Division NHL 1942-67, Western Division 1968-74, Norris Division 1975-93, Central Division since 1994) 14 times: 1967, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1990, 1991 and 1993. And they have made the Stanley Cup Finals five times, in 1962, 1965, 1971, 1973 and 1992.

Nevertheless, the team has still not won the Cup since 1961, the longest drought of any current NHL team. (The current Ottawa Senators franchise began play in 1992, named for a team that folded in 1934 and last won the Cup in 1927.) No curse has been publicly suggested for the Hawks since (although, most people blame owner Bill Wirtz on their current drought).