Danny Wirtz: Blackhawks remain committed to name, logo originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
The Cleveland Indians announced last week that the organization has begun the process of changing its name and logo, and will officially be dropped in 2022.
The decision comes five months after Washington retired its controversial name and logo in the NFL.
The Blackhawks released a statement in July, standing by their name and logo and commitment to "raising the bar even higher to expand awareness of Black Hawk and the important contributions of all Native American people."
On Thursday, Blackhawks CEO Danny Wirtz shared his thoughts on Cleveland's decision to change its name and how that could impact the Blackhawks.
“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. "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."We want it to come to life in everything we do across so many dimensions, 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. We’re going to continue down this path and continue to hold our brand up in the highest levels of honor."
