The New York Americans hockey team played in the National Hocky League from 1925 until 1941. Just before the start of the 1941-42 season, they were renamed the Brooklyn Americans in name only, still playing their games in Manhattan, at Madison Square Garden. They folded in 1942.
The 1974 Florida Blazers enjoy a something of a cult following among pro football history buffs. Fearsome on the field, the franchise was a train wreck in the front office. The Blazers were put together by Rommie Loudd, a 41-year old former AFL linebacker and New England Patriots executive. Loudd is occasionally cited as the first African-American owner of a “major league” American sports franchise for his time with the Blazers. But the main money man was a central Florida Holiday Inn franchisee named David Williams. By December 1974, the Blazers were in the World Bowl championship game of the World Football League, the team’s best player had played the entire season without a paycheck, and Rommie Loudd was under indictment.
The Seattle Steelheads were members of the West Coast Negro Baseball Association (WCNBA) in that circuit’s only season, 1946. The team was actually the Harlem Globetrotters baseball club and returned to barnstorming when the WCNBA ceased operations.
The Mariners were the first and only Major pro hockey team to play in the city of San Diego. The team was part of the World Hockey Association, the colorful 1970’s rival to the National Hockey League, from 1974 through 1977. The team’s arrival in 1974 displaced the popular San Diego Gulls minor league team from the Sports Arena. The Mariners made the WHA’s AVCO Cup playoff in all three of their seasons. But constant ownership turmoil proved to be the club’s undoing and the Mariners folded in the spring of 1977.
The original Memphis Chicks (AKA Chickasaws) played in the Southern Association from 1912 to 1960. The Southern Association was one of the most stable minor leagues in America during the first half of the 20th century. Like the Chicks themselves, many of Memphis’ league rivals – such as the Atlanta Crackers, Birmingham Barons and Nashville Volunteers – endured for decades.
For a remarkable three-year period between 2004 and 2006 this amateur women’s soccer club that played in a 1,500-seat community college field in the Trenton suburbs managed to sign up a jaw-dropping roster of top players from all over the world. The Wildcats ran roughshod over the USL’s W-League during these years with only one North American women’s club – the Vancouver Whitecaps – able to stay on the field with them.
This early Arena Football franchise played five seasons in North Carolina, splitting dates between the massive, NBA-scale Charlotte Coliseum and the smaller Independence Arena. 41-year old former NFL All-Pro lineman Joe DeLamielleure played for the Rage in 1992. He is the only Pro Football Hall of Famer other than Kurt Warner to play Arena Football.
In the spring of 1982, the Canadian Football League’s venerable Montreal Alouettes franchise collapsed under a mountain of debt. Seeking a clean slate for new ownership, league officials folded the Alouettes on May 13, 1982 and awarded a new Montreal expansion club to Seagram’s liquor baron and Montreal Expos founder Charles Bronfman the next day. The club embarked on a star-crossed four year voyage under the new name “Concordes”, drawing inspiration from the iconic supersonic transatlantic jets of the era.
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