CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Don't count on the Chicago Blackhawks to follow the lead of Cleveland's baseball team.
This week the Cleveland Indians announced it would be changing it name following the 2020-2021 baseball season, becoming the latest professional sports team with ties to Native American culture to change its name and mascot.
Following the announcement on Sunday, “Blackhawks” and “Chiefs” began trending on Twitter, with Native American advocates saying the name and images are stereotypical, racist, and harmful to their communities.
The NHL team named Danny Wirtz as CEO on Wednesday, and he was asked Thursday to address whether the organization is considering a name change.
“I respect the decision the Cleveland Indians made to go down that path,” Wirtz said, “but we continue to deepen our commitment to upholding our namesake and our brand, the work we’ve been doing over the last several months and expanding and deepening conversations and partnerships within the Native community.”
The organization said it has no intention of changing the team's name or logo, featuring the head of Native American chief "Black Hawk" - namesake of the U.S. Army infantry unit that team founder Frederic McLaughlin served in in World War I.
The Blackhawks have banned fans wearing Native American-style headdresses and doing war chants at the United Center, and recently they instituted programming related to Indian culture.
CEO Danny Wirtz said he wants the name and logo to celebrate Native American culture.
“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,” Wirtz said. “But we wanted to come to life in everything we do across so many dimensions, 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 we’re going to continue down this path and continue to hold our brand up in the highest levels of honor.”
Earlier this year the Washington Redskins announced that their name and logo were out, and until a new name is picked the team is just known as Washington.
