San Diego Gulls (1990-1995)
July 21, 2024
International Hockey League (1990-1995) Born: 1990 Move Announced: January 5, 1995 (Los Angeles Ice Dogs) First Game: October 5, 1990 (W 4-3 vs. Salt Lake
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Category: International Hockey League
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Grand Rapids Owls
July 7, 2022
Pro hockey returned to Grand Rapids, Michigan abruptly in December 1977 with the messy midseason arrival of the Dayton Owls, an International Hockey League club displaced due to low attendance just two dozen games into the 1977-78 season. The Owls would provide the first pro hockey action seen in Grand Rapids since the departure of the IHL’s Rockets 22 years earlier at the end of the 1955-56 season. The Grand Rapids Owls would appear in the IHL’s Turner Cup Finals in 1979 before disbanding the following year.
Muskegon Lumberjacks (1984-1992)
January 23, 2021
Muskegon, Michigan was a mainstay of the Rust Belt-based International Hockey League from 1960 until 1992. The Lumberjacks were the last of three Muskegon clubs to play in the IHL, following in the footsteps of the Zephyrs (1960-1965) and the Mohawks (1965-1984). The ‘Jacks were a league dynasty during the late 1980’s, appearing the Turner Cup finals in six of their eight seasons and winning in 1986 and 1989. The team combined outstanding independent players such as Scott Gruhl, Jock Callander and Dave Michayluk with NHL prospects thanks to a late 80’s farm team affiliation with the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Lumberjacks relocated to Cleveland following the 1991-92 season.
Saginaw Hawks
November 20, 2020
The Saginaw Hawks of the International Hockey League were a short-lived farm club of the NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks during the late 1980’s. The team is best known for helping to develop future Hall-of-Fame netminder Ed Belfour along his path to NHL stardom. Chicago signed Belfour as an undrafted free agent out of the University of North Dakota in 1987 and assigned him to Saginaw. He won 32 games that winter and helped Saginaw advance to the semi-finals of the IHL’s Turner Cup playoffs. Belfour would go on to become one of the NHL’s all-time wins leaders among goaltenders and earned election to the Hall-of-Fame in his first year of eligibility in 2011.
Cincinnati Mohawks
May 25, 2020
The Cincinnati Mohawks, at first, were a middling minor league hockey club that put together three unremarkable seasons as a Montreal Canadiens and New York Rangers farm club in the American Hockey League (AHL) during the early 1950’s. But the Mohawks turned from also-rans to juggernaut when the club jumped from the AHL to the lower-cost International Hockey League (IHL) in 1952. The Mohawks reeled off five consecutive Turner Cup playoff championships from 1953 to ’57.