The St. John’s Maple Leafs were the long-time top farm club of the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs. The team’s best season in the American Hockey League was their first during the winter of 1991-92. After finishing 2nd place in the AHL’s Atlantic Division that winter, the Leafs advanced to the 1992 Calder Cup finals against the Adirondack Red Wings. The Leafs lost to Adirondack 4 games to 3 in a strange series that saw the road team win all seven games.
The Manchester Monarchs were a wildly popular minor league hockey attraction in southern New Hampshire during the early 2000’s. In their first four seasons of play, the Monarchs led the AHL in attendance three times, peaking at 9,141 fans per game during the 2003-04 season. The late 2000’s brought hard times, however, as the team’s fortunes never recovered from the Great Recession of 2008-09 or a 2015 decision by long-time NHL parent club the Los Angeles Kings to relegate the Monarchs to the lower-tier ECHL.
Throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s, tiny Glens Falls, New York was one of the smallest cities in North America to boast of its own pro hockey team. The city of just 16,000 had not just any rinky dink club, but the top farm club of the Detroit Red Wings for 20 seasons. The Adirondack Red Wings of the American Hockey League were a great success story during the 1980’s, routinely packing Glens Falls’ 4,800-seat Civic Center.
American Hockey League (1995-1997) Born: April 11, 1995 – AHL expansion franchise Moved: 1997 (Cincinnati Mighty Ducks) First Game: October 6, 1995 (L 3-1 vs. Carolina
The Edmonton Oilers kept their top farm team in Atlantic Canada from 1984 to 1996. From the 1984 to 1988 the American Hockey League club was known as the Nova Scotia Oilers and played out of the Halifax Metro Centre. In 1988 to the team moved 195 miles east to the community of Sydney on Cape Breton Island. In their 12 seasons in Nova Scotia, the Baby Oilers won only four playoff series. Fortunately they won them all in the same season, ripping off a spectacular 14-2 record en route to the 1993 Calder Cup championship.
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