W. Rockwell Wirtz, nicknamed Rocky, the chairman of the N.H.L.’s Chicago Blackhawks, died Tuesday at age 70.

The Blackhawks introduced Wirtz’s demise on their Twitter account however didn’t record a trigger or location.

“Our hearts are very heavy today,” Danny Wirtz, Rocky’s son and the chief govt of the crew, mentioned in a press release. “Our dad was a passionate businessman committed to making Chicago a great place to live, work and visit, but his true love was for his family and close friends.”

Wirtz’s grandfather Arthur had gained management of the crew in 1954, when Rocky was 2 years previous, after working in actual property. Arthur Wirtz’s different pursuits included a lodge and a furnishings enterprise. He was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1971 and is credited for utilizing his “financial might to help solidify the standing of the N.H.L. in the United States.”

Today, the household’s companies, via the Wirtz Corporation, embrace actual property, insurance coverage, banking, beverage distribution and sports activities and leisure. Rocky Wirtz had been the president of the company and the chairman of crew since 2007, having assumed the roles after the demise of his father, William.

While Chicago hockey followers had come to criticize William Wirtz for the crew administration’s refusal to televise most dwelling video games, for poor on-ice efficiency and for a reluctance to signal free brokers — inspiring the nickname Dollar Bill — the crew returned to prominence within the 2010s.

Rocky Wirtz reversed some of his father’s policies, together with these relating to televised video games and ticketing, and dipped into money from other family businesses to prop up the hockey crew.

Wirtz mentioned his adjustments on tv and ticketing — his father most well-liked to cost all seats on the identical stage of the world the identical, no matter location — had come after he talked with Jerry Reinsdorf, the proprietor of the N.B.A.’s Chicago Bulls and Major League Baseball’s White Sox. Their households had labored collectively to construct the world their groups share, United Center, which opened in 1994.

“This is just shocking news, and I am personally devastated,” Reinsdorf mentioned in a press release. “Rocky truly was a great man. We were far more than partners at the United Center. We were very close. He was a dear friend, and our trust, our bond, was unbreakable.”

Chicago received three Stanley Cups within the decade, in 2010, 2013 and 2015, breaking a championship drought that stretched to 1961, an particularly lengthy fallow interval for one of many league’s Original Six groups.

Those championships, nevertheless, misplaced their glimmer when a 2021 investigation commissioned by the team discovered that a number of Blackhawks executives had did not report an accusation {that a} minor league participant was sexually assaulted by the crew’s video coach in the course of the 2010 playoffs.

The investigation discovered that executives had been apprehensive about distracting the crew and had not carried out a radical inquiry or adequately punished the coach, Brad Aldrich, who later made a sexual advance towards a crew intern. Aldrich later labored in a number of different jobs in hockey and pleaded responsible to sexual contact with a minor whereas he was a highschool coach in Michigan, the place he needed to register as a intercourse offender.

During a city corridor occasion in 2022, Rocky Wirtz confronted reporters and declined to reply questions in regards to the participant who had introduced the 2010 accusation, Kyle Beach, and what the crew would do to guard gamers sooner or later. He later apologized.

The N.H.L. fined the crew $2 million, and two executives who had been amongst these made conscious of the accusation in 2010 resigned from their posts. Fans and members of the news media have criticized the league for not levying stiffer punishment. Chicago retained its 2023 first-round draft choose and received the lottery, giving it the power to pick Connor Bedard, a prospect considered a generational expertise.

Besides his work in hockey and within the household’s companies, Wirtz pursued philanthropic efforts and served on the board of trustees at his alma mater, Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

In addition to his son Danny, Rocky Wirtz is survived by his spouse, Marilyn; two different kids, Kendall and Hillary; a stepdaughter, Elizabeth; and 6 grandchildren, in response to an N.H.L. assertion.