Eastern Hockey League (1970-1973)
Southern Hockey League (1973-1976)
Tombstone
Born: 1970 – The Salem Rebels re-brand as the Roanoke Valley Rebels
Folded: Summer 1976
First Game:
Last Game:
Walker Cup Championships (EHL): None
Southern Hockey League Championships: 1974
Arenas
1970-1971: Salem-Roanoke Valley Civic Center (4,042)
1971-1976: Roanoke Civic Center (8,372)
Marketing
Team Colors:
Ownership
Owners:
- 1970-1971: Thomas Anderton
- 1971-1975: Gene Hawthorne, et al.
- 1975-1976: Henry Brabham, et al.
Background
The Roanoke Valley Rebels were a Virginia minor league hockey outfit during the early-mid 1970’s. The franchise originated in nearby Salem, Virginia in 1967 when that city opened a 4,000-seat Civic Center. The team moved most of its games to the new and larger Roanoke Civic Center upon its opening in 1971, but continued to play some dates in Salem.
The Rebels initially played in the Southern Division of the Eastern Hockey League, competing against teams from North Carolina, Tennessee and Florida. The Southern teams also played a limited number of inter-division contests against the EHL’s Northern Division teams clustered in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New England.
Geographic and competitive tensions between the Northern and Southern teams came to a head in 1973 and the EHL split in two. The Rebels, along with the Charlotte Checkers, Greensboro Generals and Suncoast (FL) Suns went off to form the Southern Hockey League in May 1973. The northern teams formed the North American Hockey League that same spring and the EHL ceased to exist. The Rebels won the first championship of the Southern Hockey League in March 1974, besting the Charlotte Checkers 4 games to 3 in a best-of-seven series.
Demise & Aftermath
The Rebels and the rest of the SHL struggled to find their feet financially after splitting away from the EHL. Two of the SHL’s original six franchises went out of business through the league’s first season during the winter of the 1973-74. The Rebels declared bankruptcy in July 1975 and appeared to be done at that point. New owners propped up the club at the last moment and the Rebels embarked on a third SHL season in the fall of 1975. But the club barely made it through the 1975-76 season and folded once and for all the following summer.
Henry Brabham, the last in a series of Rebels’ owners during the 1970’s, re-established a new version of the Roanoke Valley Rebels in the East Coast Hockey League in 1990. Rebels Version 2.0 operated for two seasons from 1990 to 1992 and continued to use the original club’s Rebel Flag motif, likely the last mainstream American pro sports franchise to do so.
Roanoke Valley Rebels Shop
Links
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