Detroit Red Wings 100th Anniversary NHL Advent Calendar 2026

The rigid red display box centers the Winged Wheel beneath “24 DAYS OF HOCKEY LEGACY,” with a snowy Detroit skyline, Little Caesars Arena, NHL imagery and anniversary details surrounding it. Inside, 24 compact acrylic ornaments extend the theme through hockey figures, equipment, apparel, trophy imagery and seasonal pieces.

Rather than treating the centennial as one large “100” graphic, the calendar spreads Detroit hockey across an entire December display.

Detroit Red Wings centennial Advent Calendar with Winged Wheel imagery, snowy Detroit skyline and Little Caesars Arena.

The centennial begins with Detroit’s 1926 NHL franchise

The anniversary starts on September 25, 1926, when the NHL officially approved franchises in Detroit and Chicago for the 1926–27 season. Detroit initially competed as the Cougars, taking its name after acquiring players from the former Victoria Cougars of the Western Hockey League.

That first identity matters because the franchise did not yet carry the Red Wings name.

Detroit became the Falcons in 1930 and finally adopted Red Wings in 1932. NHL records therefore list September 25, 1926 as the franchise date while separately documenting the Cougars and Falcons eras that preceded the familiar modern name.

Even the first game adds another unusual layer to the story. The Cougars made their NHL debut on November 18, 1926 against Boston, but played across the river at Border Cities Arena in Windsor because Detroit’s Olympia Stadium was still under construction.

The calendar’s 1926–2026 framing therefore covers more than the Red Wings era alone. It reaches back to the birth of Detroit’s NHL franchise, before the Winged Wheel had even appeared.

Centennial artwork connecting the modern Red Wings identity with one hundred years of Detroit NHL history.

The Winged Wheel connects hockey with the Motor City

By 1932, the franchise finally had the identity that would define it.

NHL history traces the Red Wings name and Winged Wheel imagery to owner James Norris, whose background included the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association’s “Winged Wheelers.” The wheel also made particular sense in Detroit, where automotive manufacturing had already made the city synonymous with machines and motion.

That makes the emblem on the calendar unusually effective for a centennial design. It represents the team, but it also carries a visual connection to Detroit itself.

The Red Wings’ official Centennial uniform followed the same logic. When the team unveiled it for the 2025–26 Centennial season, the design kept the Winged Wheel as its primary crest and described it as a symbol of the tradition that had defined Detroit hockey for generations.

Behind that emblem sits substantial championship history. Detroit’s Centennial materials count 11 Stanley Cup championships, from the first in 1936 through the most recent in 2008, making the Red Wings the most successful U.S.-based franchise in Stanley Cup history.

The trophy and hockey-equipment motifs around the calendar therefore have more context than generic sports decoration. They sit beside an emblem associated with championship eras spanning Gordie Howe, Steve Yzerman, Nicklas Lidstrom and generations of Detroit hockey.

Red Wings-themed acrylic pieces use hockey equipment, figures, apparel and trophy imagery to broaden the centennial beyond one logo.

Twenty-four pieces connect the old franchise with modern Hockeytown

Little Caesars Arena brings the design back to present-day Detroit.

The Red Wings moved there for the 2017–18 season, after decades at Joe Louis Arena, and the building now anchors the modern game-day side of the franchise represented on the box.

Placing arena and skyline imagery beside the Winged Wheel creates a useful timeline within one composition. 1926 supplies the origin, the emblem represents the established Red Wings identity, championship imagery carries the competitive legacy, and Little Caesars Arena shows where that history lives today.

The 24-day format then breaks those ideas into smaller visual moments. One opening may emphasize the player side of hockey, another equipment or apparel, while trophy and seasonal pieces expand the display beyond a row of repeated logos.

At approximately 3–4 cm tall, the ornaments remain small enough to build around the box as December progresses. Once Christmas Eve arrives, the numerical sequence can disappear completely and the collection can be regrouped into a compact Detroit hockey display, with the arena and snowy skyline continuing to act as a backdrop.

For another NHL-centered Christmas countdown, the Toronto Maple Leafs 2026 NHL Advent Calendar takes the same 24-day collecting idea into a different Original Six visual identity.

Twenty-four small hockey collectibles designed to build into a Red Wings centennial display across December.

The strength of the calendar is that a century does not have to fit inside one anniversary badge. The Cougars begin the story in 1926, the Winged Wheel gives it a lasting identity, eleven Stanley Cups supply the championship weight, and modern Detroit provides the setting where the next century continues.

Product notes by Nadia Marsh, Collectibles Specialist at DoesignUs.