Kansas City Red Wings

Central Hockey League (1977-1979)

Tombstone

Born: 1977
Folded: April 25, 1979

First Game: October 13, 1977 (L 3-1 vs. Fort Worth Texans)
Last Game: April 14, 1979 (L 3-1 vs. Dallas Black Hawks)

Adams Cup Championships: None

Arena

Kemper Arena (16,998)¹
Opened: 1974

Marketing

Team Colors: Red & White²

Ownership & Affiliation

Owner:

NHL Affiliation: Detroit Red Wings

[attendance]

We do not have precise full-season attendance records for the Kansas City Red Wings (yet).

On December 9th, 1977, the Red Wings broke the Central Hockey League’ single-game attendance record when an announced crowd of 13,626 turned out at Kemper Arena for a “Merchant’s Night” promotion against the Salt Lake Golden Eagles.³

The Red Wings broke their own CHL single-game record two months later when 14,084 showed up at Kemper for a February 17th, 1978 contest against the Dallas Black Hawks.⁴

Those two crowds were significant outliers, however. Overall, the team averaged under 4,000 fans per game.

Background

The Kansas City Red Wings were the top farm club of the Detroit Red Wings for two seasons during the late 1970’s. The Wings arrived in the fall of 1977, replacing the Central Hockey League’s departing Kansas City Blues club at the three-year old Kemper Arena.

The Red Wings missed the playoffs during the first season at Kemper in 1977-78. Former Boston Bruins star Derek Sanderson skated four games for Kansas City that winter, notching a goal and three assists. Needless to say, Turk’s career was in steep decline by this juncture. Just five years earlier in 1972, Sanderson was briefly the highest paid professional athlete in the world. By the end of the season, his career was over at age 31.

The Wings improved to a 3rd place regular season finish in the six-team CHL during the 1978-79 season. Goalie Ron Low started 63 of the club’s 78 regular season games and was named the CHL’s Most Valuable Player. The Dallas Black Hawks swept the Wings out of the first round of the Adams Cup playoffs in four games.

Red Wings Pull Out

Detroit Red Wings owner Bruce Norris moved his top club to tiny Glens Falls, New York (pop. 17,000) in the American Hockey League in the spring of 1979. Red Wings officials cited $1.5 million in losses over two years of operating at Kemper Arena. The Wings averaged 3,200 fans per game in 1977-78 and 2,800 per contest in 1978-79, according to wire reports. The Red Wings’ demise marked the fourth pro hockey team to fail in Kansas City in the past four years, following the NHL’s Scouts in 1976 and the CHL’s Blues in 1977.

Pro hockey disappeared from Kansas City for more than a decade until the formation of the Kansas City Blades of the International Hockey League in 1990.