Pete Muldoon was the 1st coach of the Chicago Black Hawks for the 1926-27 NHL season. They played a 44 game regular NHL season, winning 19, losing 22 with 3 ties and finished 3rd in NHL American Division. Black Hawks Dick Irvin was 2nd in NHL scoring and Babe Dye was 5th.

In the 1927 NHL playoffs, they lost to Boston Bruins in a 2 game total goals (10-5) quarterfinal series.

Team owner Frederic McLaughlin fired Muldoon before the start of the 1927-28 season and legend has it the Muldoon publicly put "a curse" (known as the "Curse of Muldoon") on the Black Hawks, stating that the team would never win the NHL pennant (1st Overall).

The Black Hawks finished last, recording only 7 wins that season.

The Black Hawks did win the Stanley Cup in 1934, 1938 and 1961, but did not finish 1st in NHL standings in those seasons.

Finally, the Black Hawks finished 1st in NHL standings for the 1966-67 season, winning the Prince of Wales Trophy as regular season champions.

It was the last time the Prince of Wales Trophy was awarded for this, as it then became the trophy for East Division regular season champions (1967–1974), Wales Conference regular season champions (1974–1981), Wales Conference playoffs champions (1981–1993), Eastern Conference playoffs champions (1993–2020), Stanley Cup semifinals (2020–2021) and back to Eastern Conference playoffs champions (2021–present).

NOTE
In 1992, the National Hockey League erroneously published that the curse was created by sportswriter Jim Coleman in 1941.

Muldoon was the 1st to coach a American team (Seattle Metropolitans) to a Stanley Cup championship in 1917.