Tag: Battelle Hall

Columbus Horizon Basketball

Columbus Horizon

September 12, 2018

Columbus Horizon owner Eli Jacobson was a glutton for punishment. The insurance man spent nearly a decade as an investor in the Continental Basketball Association – an eternity by CBA conventions. He owned teams in Pensacola, Columbus and Shreveport between the mid-80’s and mid-90’s. Jacobson’s teams were consistently terrible. Hen enjoyed two winning seasons out of ten and finished in last place five times. Jacobson stayed in Columbus, Ohio for the longest stretch of his CBA adventure – five seasons and four last place finishes between 1989 and 1994.

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Columbus Hawks

Columbus Hawks

November 5, 2015

This fly-by-night professional roller hockey outfit played for two months in downtown Columbus, Ohio during the summer of 1998.  The Hawks were one of several minor sports franchises that tried to make a go of it at Battelle Hall in the Columbus Convention Center during the mid-1990’s, along with the Columbus Invaders indoor soccer team and the Columbus Quest women’s basketball team. Only the Quest attracted even a modest core of regular fans while the two men’s teams played to virtually empty stands. None of these clubs made it through more than two seasons.

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Columbus Capitals American Indoor Soccer Association

Columbus Capitals

August 18, 2013

The Columbus Capitals were a short-lived entry in the low-budget American Indoor Soccer Association.  The league played out of minor league hockey arenas in the upper Midwest at the time. The Caps played at the Ohio Center and the Fairground Coliseum for two winter seasons from 1984 to 1986. Yugoslav-born forward Lesh Shkreli, a veteran of the American outdoor minor leagues, led the AISA in scoring during the inaugural 1984-85 season and was named the league’s Most Valuable Player.

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1996-97 Columbus Invaders Program from the National Professional Soccer League

Columbus Invaders

August 14, 2013

The one-year existence of the Columbus Invaders of the indoor National Professional Soccer League was a sad coda to the story of the Canton Invaders, a minor league soccer dynasty of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.

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1996-97 Columbus Quest Program from the American Basketball League

Columbus Quest

December 27, 2012

The Columbus Quest were the first and only champions of the women’s American Basketball League, a top-flight early competitor to the WNBA that launched in the fall of 1996. The Quest won the ABL title in 1997 and repeated in 1998, but the club collapsed along with the rest of the ABL two months into the league’s doomed third season in December 1998.

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