Last week, Cleveland's Major League Baseball team announced they'll be changing their name, dropping 'Indians' as their namesake following the 2021 season. Asked during a media availability whether the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks might be considering a similar move, CEO Danny Wirtz said the hockey club will "continue down this path and continue to hold our brand up in the highest levels of honour.â
âObviously, we respect the decision the Cleveland Indians made to go down that path, but we continue to deepen our commitment to upholding our namesake and our brand," Wirtz told reporters Thursday morning. "The work weâve been doing over the last several months and expanding and deepening conversations and partnerships within the Native community, we continue to feel really positive about the types of work we can do, the way in which we can be better stewards of the namesake and the history, and to use our platforms to be educators not only for our fans but for our internal teams and making sure that we provide that reverence and respect that we talk about that.
"We want it to come to life in everything we do across so many dimensions â both from a marketing standpoint, from a learning and education standpoint, and from by all means a community standpoint in ways in which we have integrated Native voices into a lot of those efforts.
"So, weâre going to continue down this path and continue to hold our brand up in the highest levels of honour,â Wirtz concluded.
The Blackhawks' name and logo have been publicly questioned over the years, and again was in the spotlight when the Washington Football Club announced it would be changing its moniker and image back in July. The Blackhawks released a statement at the time, standing by the team's logo and stating that it "symbolizes an important and historic person, Black Hawk of Illinoisâ Sac & Fox Nation, whose leadership and life has inspired generations of Native Americans, veterans and the public."
"We celebrate Black Hawkâs legacy by offering ongoing reverent examples of Native American culture, traditions and contributions, providing a platform for genuine dialogue with local and national Native American groups," the team said in the July statement.
"As the teamâs popularity grew over the past decade, so did that platform and our work with these important organizations."
In November, the club announced it will read a Land Acknowledgement statement before every home game moving forward.
giferbud on December 18th, 2020 at 16:41 UTC »
Indigenous hockey fan here.
I've covered this before, and in my opinion, I see nothing wrong with this.
This pays homage in a non racial way to the man, and the battalion (which the founder served in nonetheless).
As we've seen in other major sports, from what I can tell when watching the games, the fans seems respectful and don't partake in actions or dress code that would be deemed as 'appropriation'. Nobody wears headdresses, does any 'rain dances' or 'tomahawk chops'. IIRC, the Blackhawks have the best fans (or did?, Might be the Penguins now)
The Blackhawks actively contribute to the enrichment of first Nations communities and have recently committed further efforts here and here (I know just minor examples). Fred Sasakamoose was one of the first Indigenous to play as well with the the Blackhawks.
The Blackhawks aren't pretending to be something/someone that they're not, which makes the difference for me here. They are first and foremost a hockey club, and I know in my area, a lot of indigenous kids look up the team.
I fully understand that different indigenous peoples will have mixed views on this - just like any group of people would. This is just simply my opinion as well. And as others have pointed out, if there seems to be the general consensus among those affected by this that it is wrong, I'm sure the NHL and the Franchise would see to its change (if nothing else but for profits).
Edit: I will add, I love the logo personally, but I can see how it upsets some people. I, and I'm sure others, would be all for a logo change if needed. Some of the concepts I've seen floating around on this sub look tremendous. I also love the homage to our colours being used as well, there was definitely some attention to detail there. But I still stand by the name staying.
PharaohPeter on December 18th, 2020 at 14:25 UTC »
The difference between the Blackhawks and Washington Football team is that the Blackhawk represents an actual indigenous person who was a chief and a well respected person. It was also the name of a WW1 battalion/platoon.
As for the Washington Football team, the name was just a random depiction of all indigenous people; calling them "Redskins".
One honours an indigenous man, another insults indigenous people. Big difference.
Source: https://www.nhl.com/blackhawks/team/native-american-initiatives#legacy
EDIT: WW1, not WW2.
MazerTag on December 18th, 2020 at 14:07 UTC »
The Chicago Football Team is kind of a weird name for an NHL club, to be fair.