The 1990’s East Coast Hockey League edition of the Birmingham Bulls was the most successful of several nostalgic revivals of the Magic City’s World Hockey Association franchise of the same name from the late 1970’s.
The doomed Birmingham South Stars were the third attempt to establish pro hockey at Alabama’s 16,000-seat Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center, opened in 1976. The South Stars of the Central Hockey League (CHL) followed the original Birmingham Bulls (1976-1979) of the major World Hockey Association and a later minor league edition of the Bulls that played in the CHL from 1979 to 1981. The South Stars were a farm club of the NHL’s Minnesota North Stars and shared their parent club’s green & gold colors.
The Birmingham Bulls of the World Hockey Association were one of the first major pro hockey teams to make their home in the Deep South, sharing that distinction with the slightly older Atlanta Flames of the National Hockey League. The Bulls never posted a winning record and made the playoffs only once in three WHA seasons. But the team did make news for its controversial “Baby Bulls” youth movement that saw the team sign a parade of teenage stars from the junior ranks who would later go on to NHL stardom, including Ken Linseman, Michel Goulet, Rick Vaive, Pat Riggin and others. Read more…
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