Blackhawks CEO commits to keeping team name amid social pressure

The Chicago Blackhawks have committed to holding on to their name and imagery, said team CEO Danny Wirtz on Thursday.

Wirtz said the team will do so "in the highest levels of honour."

The comment came as yet another Indigenous-based team name announced that they would be rebranding. Last week, the Cleveland Indians announced that they would no longer be using the team name or iconic Chief Wahoo logo.

Other teams to have succumbed to social pressure include the CFL's Edmonton Eskimos, and the NFL's Washington Redskins.

"Obviously, 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 said, according to SportsNet. "The work we’ve 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 — 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 honour,” Wirtz said.

The key difference between the Blackhawks and other Indigenous-themed sports teams is that the NHL team "celebrate Black Hawk's legacy by offering ongoing revert examples of Native American culture, traditions and contributions, providing a platform for genuine dialogue with local and national Native American groups," the team said.

The team's name and logo "symbolizes an important and historic person, Black Hawk of Illinois’ Sac & Fox Nation, whose leadership and life has inspired generations of Native Americans, veterans and the public."

The team announced in November that the team would do land acknowledgements before every home game.