What happened to the Oakland Seals National Hockey League team that played at the Oakland Arena from 1966 to 1976? It’s fascinating tale of hockey from the Bay Area to Cleveland to Minnesota and back to Oakland.
The Chicago Cougars were charter members of the WHA in 1972. The team played three seasons in the Windy City before folding in 1975.
This was a good 1970’s NHL expansion team! No, really. The Atlanta Flames had a winning record in five of their eight seasons as the NHL’s only Deep South outpost. They made the playoffs six out of those eight years. They had a core of outstanding young players and a future Hall-of-Fame executive in the GM chair. But the collective memory of the Atlanta Flames is that they weren’t very good because they were God-awful in the playoffs (objectively true) and Southerners hate ice hockey (possibly true, definitely a well-worn trope).
National Hockey League (1976-1978) Born: July 14, 1976 – The California Golden Seals relocate to Cleveland, OH. Died: June 14, 1978 – Merger with Minnesota
The Colorado Rockies hockey team was a star-crossed organization that spent most of six winters in Denver seeking to move elsewhere. The Rockies began life in 1974 as the Kansas City Scouts, a poorly organized NHL expansion effort and wound-up in the swamplands of New Jersey six years later.
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