Pacific Hockey League (1978-1979)
Tombstone
Born: November 1978 – PHL expansion franchise
Folded: January 18, 19791NO BYLINE. “Blades Fold PHL Franchise”. The Times (Los Angeles, CA). January 19, 1979
First Game: November 15, 1978 (W 5-3 @ San Francisco Shamrocks)
Last Game: January 14, 1979 (L 13-2 @ Spokane Flyers)
PHL Championships: None
Arena
Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena (14,519)
Opened: 1959
Demolished: 2016
Marketing
Team Colors: Black, Gold & White
Ownership
Owner: J. Glenn Barrons
Background
The Los Angeles Blades were a hastily organized and quickly departed entry in the Pacific Hockey League (1977-1979) during the league’s second and final season in the winter of 1978-79. The PHL was organized in 1977 by former executives from the big budget World Hockey Association. The PHL hoped to recapture the glory days of the old Western Hockey League (1952-1974), a top-flight minor league which thrived from Phoenix to Vancouver up until the late 1960’s. The westward expansion of the NHL in 1967 and the arrival of the rival World Hockey Association in 1972 combined to deprive the Western League of players and markets and the league folded in 1974.
The Pacific Hockey League was a slapdash effort from the start. The league only had four franchises during its first season in 1977-78. Just three of the originals returned for year two. Expansion franchises in Tucson and Spokane brought the league membership to five teams, but five is an awkward number for scheduling purposes.
San Diego Hawks owner Elmer Jonnet persuaded his friend J. Glenn Barrons to back a Los Angeles team to bring the league to six for the 1978-79. The Blades were thrown together in less than two weeks in November 1979. Barrons named his team the Los Angeles Blades, in honor of the Western League franchise of the same name that played from 1961 until 1967 until the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings arrived in town.
The team was such a last minute afterthought that Barrons couldn’t get dates at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena at first. The club played its first month on the road before opening at home against the Tucson Rustlers on December 14, 1979. The team wasn’t supported by Los Angelenos – who barely knew the Blades existed – and Barrons walked away in January after just two months. The Blades just 22 of their planned 60 games before folding, posting a 7-14-1 record.
The Blades best known player was 41-year old Howie Young, a rough and tumble NHL and WHA defender. Young spent a stretch of the 1960’s as a top-flight performer with the original Blades of the Western League.
Another notable was former Washington Capital Craig Patrick, playing his final games of a decade-long career. The following year Patrick would serve as the Assistant Coach to Herb Brooks on the iconic 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team that beat the Soviets and then brought home the gold at Lake Placid. In later years, Patrick became General Manager of the Pittsburgh Penguins and won two Stanley Cups as an executive.
Los Angeles Blades Shop
In Memoriam
Former WHL and PHL Blade Howie Young passed away on November 24, 1999 at age 62.
Links
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