Tag: Jack Kent Cooke

George Benitez on the cover of a 1968 Los Angeles Wolves program from the North American Soccer League

Los Angeles Wolves

August 30, 2016

The Los Angeles Wolves were a pro soccer club founded in 1967 by Los Angeles Lakers and Kings owner Jack Kent Cooke. In the scramble to get ready to play the 1967 season, each United Soccer Association franchise imported an entire team from Europe or South America to cosplay as an American club. The 1967 Wolves were actually Wolverhampton of England, and the American club derived its name from the English club’s nickname. The Wolves won the 1967 United Soccer Association championship, defeating the Washington Whips at L.A. Memorial Coliseum. In 1968, the Wolves moved to the Rose Bowl and the newly formed North American Soccer League. The club disbanded following the 1968 campaign.

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1975 Springfield Kings program from the American Hockey League

Springfield Kings

January 19, 2014

Springfield’s long-running American Hockey League franchise was known as the Indians by generations of Western Massachusetts hockey fans between 1926 and 1994. The exception was a span of eight seasons between 1967 and 1975 when the team took on the name ‘Kings’, following the contentious exile of the club’s iron-fisted ruler, Eddie Shore. The NHL’s Los Angeles Kings owned the Springfield club outright during these years and helped produce several outstanding future NHL stars, including Butch Goring and Billy Smith. The team changed its name back to the Indians midway through the 1974-75 season after Eddie Shore regained control of the club.

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