Richmond Wildcats

Southern Hockey League (1976-1977)

Tombstone

Born: July 1976 – SHL expansion franchise
Folded: January 4, 1977¹

First Game: October 15, 1976 (L 7-3 @ Greensboro Generals)
Last Game: January 4, 1977 (W 6-2 vs. Tidewater Sharks)

SHL Championships: None

Arena

Richmond Coliseum
Opened: 1971
Closed: 2019

Marketing

Team Colors:

Ownership

Owner: Steve Fox, et al.

Background

The Richmond Wildcats were an ill-fated minor league ice hockey club that entered the tottering Southern Hockey League as an expansion franchise during that league’s final doomed campaign.

The Wildcats replaced the departing Richmond Robins (1971-1976) of the more reputable American Hockey League at the city’s five-year old Richmond Coliseum. The Robins had served as the top farm club of the Philadelphia Flyers during the glorious Broad Street Bullies era, when the Flyers went to three consecutive Stanley Cup finals and won twice. Philly’s success did not filter down to its top minor league affiliate, however. The Robins endured five consecutive losing seasons and went out of business in June 1976.

The Southern Hockey League granted an expansion team to Richmond in early July 1976, three weeks after the Robins folded. Richmond’s entry helped to save (momentarily) the beleaguered loop, whose other clubs included Charlotte, Greensboro, Hampton, Tidewater and Winston-Salem. (Baltimore would join later in the summer, bringing the membership to seven clubs). The SHL’s fortunes were so dire that only one club owner who began the 1975-76 season – Hampton’s Charles Wornom – remained standing when league officials admitted the Richmond franchise 10 months later.²

Richmond soon emerged as the Southern Hockey League’s latest problem child.

On Ice

The Wildcats held their own as a first-year expansion team. Forbes Kennedy, a scrappy former NHL centreman who led the senior circuit in penalty minutes during the 1968-69 season, served as head coach.

Claude Periard (30 goals) and Lorne Rombough (28 goals) were the Wildcats’ top snipers. Rookie winter Barry Scully (18 goals, 26 assists) was the team’s top overall scorer. Scully would go on to bus league stardom in the higher level International Hockey League, notching three straight 60-goal seasons for the Fort Wayne Komets in the early 1980’s.

Enforcer duties were more than capably handed by Bill “Goldie” Goldthorpe, the infamous journeyman headbanger of the 1970’s who inspired the character of fearsome goon “Ogie Ogilthorpe” in the 1977 hockey classic Slap Shot. Goldthorpe racked up 169 penalty minutes in just 25 games for the Wildcats.

Slap Shot was released in the last week of February 1977 which should have coincided with a final playoff push from a competitive Wildcats team. But by February both the ‘Cats and the Southern Hockey League itself were consigned to the history books.

Demise

The Wildcats ownership group was in disarray from the jump. Dwight Neal, an auctioneer from Hampton, Virginia, was announced as Richmond’s primary stockholder in July 1976 and put up the $25,000 letter of credit that secured the team’s admission to the SHL. But by late September, Neal was out of the picture.³

On December 3rd, less than two months into the Wildcats debut season, the new face of the ownership group, Steve Fox, announced that the team had lost $30,000 and was ready to dissolve. SHL Commissioner Jack Riley was prepared to axe the Wildcats from the schedule and scatter the players in a dispersal draft. But Forbes Kennedy and the Wildcats players announced they were willing to forge ahead, playing for gate receipts (and without insurance) while new owners were sought. Wildcats boosters supplemented the ticket money by passing a hat for the players through the stands at Richmond Coliseum home games.

The Wildcats played their best hockey of the season during this difficult stretch, posting a 9-4-1 record in December and into early January. But efforts to find new ownership fizzled in the first week of January. Wildcats voted to throw in the towel after playing one last home game on January 4th, 1977. The Wildcats finished with a 21-16-1 record.

The SHL’s 18-year old Greensboro Generals franchise also quit the same day, knocking the SHL down to just five clubs. Tidewater and Winston-Salem gave up three days later. The Southern Hockey League bowed to the inevitable and closed its doors on January 31st, 1977.

Pro hockey returned to Richmond and the Coliseum in the fall of 1979 with the arrival of the Richmond Rifles and the Eastern Hockey League.