The Chicago Cougars were charter members of the WHA in 1972. The team played three seasons in the Windy City before folding in 1975. They are perhaps best remembered as the team that was displaced by Peter Pan.
The Oakland Invaders were founding members of the USFL in 1983. They were originally going to be called the Bay Area Invaders in attempt to appeal to the entire region but settled on Oakland Invaders in order to take advantage of the departure of the NFL Raiders.
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 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.
Today we look at the original Portland Beavers baseball team of 1906-1972, the first and most enduring of three clubs to play under the Bevos name in the storied Pacific Coast League. When the team finally moved away to Spokane, Washington in early 1973, Portland became the last of the original six PCL cities of 1903 to lose its minor league baseball franchise. The second version of the Beavers would return to Portland’s Civic Stadium in 1978.
Soccer League As I draft this column, I’m sitting in the athletic center at Endicott College in Beverly, Massachusetts administering the final exam for my Sports Promotions & Marketing course (SM 203). I taught two sections of the course as a guest instructor this semester and it was a blast.
Arena Football League (1990-2000) Founded: April 19, 1990 – Arena Football expansion franchise Moved: October 19, 2000 (Indiana Firebirds) First Game: June 9, 2000 (W 16-12 vs. Washington Commandos) Last Game: August 5, 2000 (L 53-50 vs. Arizona Rattlers) Arena Bowl Champions: 1999 Knickerbocker Arena (13,652) Opened: 1990 Team Colors: Orange,
The Virginia Squires of the American Basketball Association (ABA) began as the Oakland Oaks. After two seasons they were sold and moved to Washington, D.C., for one year, before moving to the Tidewater region of Eastern Virginia. They folded in 1976, just a month shy of the NBA-ABA merger.
The Sacramento Gold Miners were the first U.S.-based franchise admitted into the Canadian Football League during the CFL’s short-lived American expansion adventure from 1993 to 1995. The Gold Miners weren’t a brand new operation though. Owner Fred Anderson’s team previously played in the NFL-sponsored World League of American Football (WLAF) as the Sacramento Surge in 1991 and 1992. After NFL owners pulled the plug on the WLAF in September 1992, Anderson applied for entry to the CFL. The team retained its color scheme, Head Coach Kay Stephenson and a number of players from the WLAF era, but changed its name upon joining the CFL.
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