Portland Winterhawks

The Portland Winterhawks are a major junior ice hockey team, playing in the Western Hockey League, a member league in the Canadian Hockey League, the highest level of non-professional hockey in the world. They play their home games at the Memorial Coliseum, though typically a few games each season are also played in the neighboring Rose Garden.

The Winterhawks have won the President's Cup twice, and the Memorial Cup twice in four appearances. The team has been in Portland since 1976–77 when the team moved from Edmonton, Alberta. While known as the Edmonton Oil Kings, the team won the Memorial Cup twice and was runner-up seven times.

History
Previous-Owner Brian Shaw was a pioneer in many aspects of Junior Hockey, not only moving a team to the United States for the first time, but also is credited with designing the current CHL championship format of the champion from each of the three leagues (WHL, OHL, and QMJHL) as well as a host-city team competing for the Memorial Cup. Portland won the Memorial Cup in 1983 and 1998.

The Winterhawks were also pioneers of promotion and are credited with the invention of the "Dash for Cash" where contestants 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. Also, in late November/early December, they hold their annual teddy bear toss, which fans throw teddy bears on the ice at the first Portland goal, which are then donated to local children's charities. On December 6, 2008, fans threw out 22,392 teddy bears after Luke Walker scored Portland's first goal against Seattle.

The Winterhawks wear jerseys similar to those of the Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League, causing some to erroneously assume that the Winterhawks are a minor league farm team of the Blackhawks. In actuality, the jerseys originally worn by the first Winterhawks team were a used set of Chicago jerseys obtained through connections between the owners of the two teams. In early photos, the old Chicago jerseys are identifiable by the letter C with crossed tomahawks on the shoulder crest. The Winterhawks eventually changed the C to a P.

In recent seasons, the Winterhawks have worn a unique alternate jersey, which is black with a red and white Portland skyline and the word PORTLAND around the bottom hem. Currently, they wear a white alternate jersey loosely based on a Montreal Canadiens jersey. Instead of the Canadiens' 'CH' logo, the jersey has the word PORTLAND in outlined letters across the front stripe, and is black where the Canadiens jersey is blue.

The Portland-Chicago connection runs even deeper, as the Blackhawks were founded in 1926 by Frederic McLaughlin, who simply bought the contracts of most of the members of the Portland Rosebuds and brought them to Chicago.

Mascot
The team mascot of the Winterhawks is a white bird with multicolored tail and wing feathers, named Tom-A-Hawk. 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.'

The team would announce that it was changing its logo to a non-indigenous one and would release a new logo on July 14, 2021.

Name change
The team was known as the Winter Hawks until May 2009, when it issued a press release that "the space...announced its retirement" and that the team was renaming itself the Winterhawks.

Current ownership
Bill Gallacher, a Calgary businessman, purchased the team in October 2008.

Season-by-season record
Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, OL = Overtime losses, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against

Championships

 * Memorial Cup (2): 1982–83, 1997–98
 * President's Cup (2): 1981–82, 1997–98
 * Conference Playoff Champions (2): 1997–98, 2000–01
 * Division Playoff Champions (5): 1978–79, 1981–82, 1982–83, 1988–89, 1992–93
 * Regular Season Division Champions (11): 1977–78, 1978–79, 1979–80, 1981–82, 1982–83, 1988–89, 1992–93, 1996–97, 1997–98, 2001–02



NHL alumni
List of Portland Winterhawks alumni who have graduated to play in the National Hockey League.