The Curse of Muldoon was an alleged curse that supposedly prevented the Chicago Black Hawks (the team's name at the time) 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 the mainstream media publicizing a "curse" on a major-league sports franchise.
The Hawks' first season, 1926–27, was a moderate success, with the ...
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The Curse of Muldoon was an alleged curse that supposedly prevented the Chicago Black Hawks (the team's name at the time) 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 the mainstream media publicizing 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...
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