Portland Winter Hawks

Hockey team
team = Portland Winter Hawks

city = Portland, Oregon
league = Western Hockey League
conference = Western
division = U.S.
founded = 1976–77
arena = Memorial Coliseum Rose Garden
colours = red, white and black
coach = Richard Kromm
GM = Ken Hodge, Jr.
name1 = Edmonton Oil Kings
dates1 = 1951–1976
name2 = Portland Winter Hawks
dates2 = 1976-Present The Portland Winter Hawks 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.

The Winter Hawks 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 Winter Hawks 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. In November, 2007, fans threw out more than 20,000 teddy bears.

The Winter Hawks wear jerseys similar to those of the Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League, causing some to erroneously assume that the Winter Hawks are a minor league farm team of the Blackhawks. In actuality, the jerseys originally worn by the first Winter Hawks 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 Winter Hawks eventually changed the C to a P.

In recent seasons, the Winter Hawks 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.

The team mascot of the Winter Hawks 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.'

Current Ownership

In 2006 the team was sold to Principal Owner/CEO James Alan Goldsmith, plus Jack Donovan and John Bryant.

Jim Goldsmith is married to Kim Kaufman [http://psychotic-karin-kaufman.org/#KimKaufman] , who is one of three daughters of city developer Melvyn Kaufman. The Kaufman Portfolio [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3601/is_41_47/ai_75481524] is a set of buildings mainly in Manhattan valued at over USD $200 million. Jim Goldsmith was responsible for running the assets of the portfolio for about four years, as the President of Sage Realty [http://www.swimjim.com/jg.html] .

eason-by-season Record

"Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties OTL = Overtime losses Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against"

NHL alumni

List of Portland Winter Hawks alumni who have graduated to play in the National Hockey League.

* Jim Agnew * Dave Archibald * Dave Babych * Wayne Babych * Jozef Balej * Jeff Bandura * Dave Barr * Ryan Bast * Brian Benning * Jim Benning * James Black * Lonny Bohonos * Keith Brown * Braydon Coburn * Ed Cooper * Brian Curran * Tony Currie * Byron Dafoe * Matt Davidson * Adam Deadmarsh * Jim Dobson * Brandon Dubinsky * Brent Fedyk * Andrew Ference * Ray Ferraro

* Jeff Finley * Colin Forbes * Michael Funk * Joaquin Gage * Paul Gaustad * Bob Geale * Josh Green * Jannik Hansen * Randy Heath * Marcel Hossa * Marian Hossa * Dave Hoyda * Cale Hulse * Jamie Huscroft * Randy Ireland * Brad Isbister * Jakub Klepis * Steve Konowalchuk * John Kordic * Richard Kromm * Jason LaBarbera * Scott Langkow * James Latos * Derek Laxdal * Doug Lecuyer

* Jamie Linden * David Mackey * Clint Malarchuk * Darrell May * Jason McBain * Cody McLeod * Mark Messier * Roy Mitchell * Brenden Morrow * Paul Mulvey * Brantt Myhres * Cam Neely * Scott Nichol * Gary Nylund * Josh Olson * Perry Pelensky * Brent Peterson * Jim Playfair * Larry Playfair * Andrej Podkonicky * Ray Podloski * Nolan Pratt * Richie Regehr * Florent Robidoux * Jeff Rohlicek

* Grant Sasser * Dave Scatchard * Jeff Sharples * Brandon Smith * Ryan Stewart * Garret Stroshein * Joey Tetarenko * Mike Toal * Tim Tookey * Alfie Turcotte * Perry Turnbull * Randy Turnbull * Nick Vachon * Mike Vernon * Terry Virtue * Gord Walker * Matt Walker * Blake Wesley * Glen Wesley * Jason Wiemer * Dan Woodley * Gary Yaremchuk * Ken Yaremchuk * Brad Zavisha * Richard Zednik

External links

* [http://www.winterhawks.com Portland Winter Hawks official homepage]