The WHL's Portland Winterhawks revealed their top 50 players of all-time in alphabetical order and will count down the list throughout the campaign as the centerpiece of their 50-year anniversary.
This year is special for the WHL’s Portland Winterhawks.
The 2025-26 campaign marks the Winterhawks' 50th anniversary season, and the organization plans to celebrate “50 years of Hawkey” in style.
The Winterhawks were founded in 1976, one year after the CHL was established. Since then, they’ve grown to be one of the longest-lasting franchises in major junior hockey.
To celebrate 50 years of existence, the organization is looking to shine a light on the team’s alumni, a big reason why the team is as successful as it is today. Therefore, the club created a list of the top 50 Winterhawks of all-time, revealing the names in alphabetical order in the team’s home-opener in late October. Some of the players on the list include current NHLers Oliver Bjorkstrand, Cody Glass, Adin Hill, Seth Jarvis, Seth Jones and Nino Niederreiter.
“The organization is really putting an increased focus on our alumni, because it is such a distinguished group,” said Josh Critzer, Portland’s director of marketing and communications.
This list is more than a commemoration of the top players in the team’s history. It’s also to share a moment with alumni who were good friends, former linemates or billet brothers with the players that made the top-50 list, said Critzer.
“We’ve tried really hard to still include those people because those people have just as much about our 50 years of hockey as the top 50 do,” he said.
“I’m just so excited to be able to share some of these moments with fans because they’re going to create memories that are going to last for a lifetime. For some of these players to come back… that’s going to be really special. For them to be able to show their kids or their grandkids where they played and where they grew up, that’s pretty cool.”
However, after the WHL regular season began on Sept. 19, the Winterhawks needed to wait about five weeks before playing their first game at home.
Eventually, the team returned home to play in front of their fans on Oct. 25 for the first time this season, and it was certainly worth the wait.
“The team was just so excited to be back home and just to get a chance to see what it’s like,” Critzer said. “For a lot of these players, that was the largest crowd they’d ever played in front of.”
For this special outing against the Saskatoon Blades, the Winterhawks wore unique gold jerseys with gold helmets, in front of a crowd of 6,980, the largest the team has played in front of all season.
“It was as much of a show as it was about the hockey,” Critzer said.
The list of the top 50 all-time Winterhawks is the major centerpiece of this milestone season. And although the list was revealed in alphabetical order, there are plans to narrow down that list on promotional nights throughout the season.
For the next five months, the Winterhawks will unveil the order of their list in segments of 10.
On Saturday, players ranked 50th to 41st will be announced. On Dec. 6, Nos. 40 to 31 will be shared, then Nos. 30 to 21 on Jan. 10, Nos. 20 to 11 on Feb. 7, and finally the top 10 on March 7.
There were several contributors when it came to finalizing this list, including the help of Winterhawks fans.
There was a criterion that was followed in the process of deciding who deserved to be on that list.
For example, Ray Ferraro played for Portland in the 1982-83 season, when he scored 41 goals and 90 points in 50 games. However, those involved with putting the list together believed that there wasn’t a big enough sample size to put Ferraro in the top 50.
“It was more about what they did (in Portland), it wasn’t about the fact that they went on and played in the NHL for a certain number of games,” Critzer said.
Critzer, along with former GMs, executives, broadcasters and Andy Kemper, the team’s unofficial historian who has been following the Winterhawks since their inaugural season, were involved in the order of the list.
With that, the fans of Portland were given the opportunity to vote. In the early stages of drafting, fans were provided with a list of around 130 to 115 names to vote from. From there, the list was narrowed down for the organization to complete its final copy.
“It says a lot about Portland as a sports town,” Kemper said. “It says a lot about the city and the fans themselves. I’ve been going to (Winterhawks) games for 50 years, and I know other people… I’ve seen them for 50 years.
“It talks a lot about the organization, making sure the fans felt a part of the organization. There were some years where it was really tough to be a fan some days, but at the end of the day… the stability of the city and the franchise… It’s just going to lead us into the next 50.”
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