New Haven’s long-time American Hockey League franchise, the Nighthawks, took on a new identity during the summer of 1992 after signing an agreement to be the top farm club for the NHL’s new expansion club, the Ottawa Senators. But all was not well in New Haven, despite the honeymoon phase of a new relationship.
The New Haven Ramblers were an American Hockey League farm club of the New York Rangers for four seasons in the late 1940’s. The Ramblers replaced the AHL’s 20-year old New Haven Eagles team at the New Haven Arena in 1946. After the Rangers withdrew their support at the end of the 1949-50 season, the owners of the New Haven Arena took over the club and restored the historic “Eagles” name. But the franchise faltered without NHL patronage and shut down in December 1950 midway through the AHL season.
The New York/New Jersey Knights were a short-lived franchise in the NFL’s early 1990’s developmental league, the World League of American Football. Run & Shoot innovator Mouse Davis was the Knights’ head coach for both seasons of play. But Davis’ offense – helmed variously by Jeff Graham, Doug Pederson and Reggie Slack – never put up the kind of pinball machine numbers that his famed Houston Gamblers and Denver Gold offenses did in the United States Football League.
XFL (2001) Born: 2000 – XFL founding franchise Folded: May 10, 2001 First Game: February 3, 2001 (L 19-0 @ Las Vegas Outlaws) Last Game:
The Queens Kings were a cutely-named placeholder franchise operated by the New York Mets in the Class A New York-Penn League during the summer of 2000. The team played at the newly constructed Ballpark at St. John’s on the campus of St. John’s University in Jamaica, New York. The team’s residence in Queens was temporary by design. In September 1999 the ownership of the New York Mets purchased the Toronto Blue Jays’ NY-Penn farm club in St. Catharines, Ontario. The Mets’ intention was to take over as parent club and move the team to a new 6,500-seat ballpark on Coney Island. But the Blue Jays affiliation had one more season to run and KeySpan Park in Brooklyn wouldn’t be ready until 2001. So this created the unusual situation of the New York Mets owning and operating a Toronto Blue Jays farm team in New York City during the summer of 2000.
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