St. Louis Braves

Eastern Professional Hockey League (1963)
Central Professional Hockey League (1963-1967)

Background

The St. Louis Braves were an owned and operated farm club of the National Hockey League’s Chicago Black Hawks from 1963 until 1967. Chicago-based Hawks owners Arthur Wirtz and James D. Norris owned the St. Louis Arena during this era in addition to the Braves hockey club.

The team started out in the Eastern Professional Hockey League (1959-1963), a short-lived NHL-run minor league circuit in Ontario and Quebec. The Black Hawks initially ran a club in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario but moved the team to Syracuse, New York at the start of the EPHL’s final season in the fall of 1962. By this point, the league was down to just four teams. Dissatisfied with local support in Syracuse, the Black Hawks applied to move the team to the St. Louis Arena in midseason. The moved was approved on New Years Day, 1963 and the Braves made their St. Louis debut just five days later in front of a large crowd of 7,828 at the Arena.

The EPHL disbanded at the end of the season and the Braves joined the new Midwest-based Central Professional Hockey League in the fall of 1963. The CPHL initially was composed of five clubs, with Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Omaha and St. Paul signing on alongside St. Louis.

In Competition

Future Hall-of-Famer Tony Esposito played for the Braves in both the EPHL in 1963 and during the club’s first season in the CHL in 1963-64. After scoring 80 points in 43 games during the 1963-64 season, Espo was called up to Chicago and never played in another minor league game.

During the Braves’ first year in the CHL, top scorer Alain Caron scored 77 goals and 125 total points, setting CHL single records in both categories that would remain unbroken for the league’s 21-year history.

The Braves missed the postseason in three of their five seasons, and lost in the first round of the CHL playoffs in both 1964 and 1966.

Displaced

When the NHL Governors began to consider expansion beyond the league’s Original Six cities in the mid-1960’s, Black Hawks co-owner James D. Norris proposed St. Louis. St. Louis Arena, with a seating capacity of over 17,000 for hockey, would walk in the door as the second largest building in the NHL, trailing only Chicago Stadium, the home of the Black Hawks. But because NHL rules forbid owners from holding an interest in more than one club, new owners would need to be found for an expansion bid. And the new owners would also need to agree to purchase the Arena from Wirtz and Norris, so as to avoid one NHL franchise holder from becoming a tenant of another.

A 10-man group headed Sidney Salmonon, Jr. ultimately won the bid and purchased the Arena in the spring of 1966. Just as the expansion bid was nearing the finish line, James D. Norris suffered a fatal heart attack at age 59. He never saw his vision of St. Louis as an NHL city come to fruition.

With the NHL St. Louis Blues set to begin play in the fall of 1967, the Braves played one final lame duck season at the Arena during the winter of 1966-67. In the spring of 1967 the Braves moved to Dallas, Texas.

The Dallas Black Hawks went out of business in 1982, closing the book on the former St. Louis Braves franchise. The Central Hockey League folded two years later in the spring of 1984. St. Louis Arena was demolished in 1999.

St. Louis Braves Shop

Contains Affiliate Links

St. Louis Arena T from Old School Shirts

In Memoriam

Braves’ all-time scoring leader Alain Caron (Braves ’63-’65) suffered a fatal heart on December 18, 1986 at the age of 48.

Links

Central Hockey League Media Guides

Central Hockey League Programs

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