The Chicago Cheetahs of Roller Hockey International were a short-lived in-line skating promotion that tried without much success to find an audience in the Windy City during the mid-1990’s. Former Black Hawks tough guy Al Secord skated for the Cheetahs during the 1994 season following a four-year retirement from the NHL.
The Chicago Rockers basketball team was a minor league outfit that tried to carve out an affordable family entertainment niche during the peak of Jordan-era Chicago Bulls dynasty in the mid-90’s. The Rockers were part of the Continental Basketball Association, the official development league of the NBA at the time. The team played at the UIC Pavilion on the West Side of Chicago. Read more…
The Chicago Power were an indoor soccer club formed in 1988. The Power were a lower-budget successor to the Chicago Sting, the city’s popular and long-running pro side that went out of business in July of that same year. Several weeks after the Sting closed their doors, a former Sting investor named Lou Weisbach purchased an expansion franchise in the American Indoor Soccer Association (AISA). Karl-Heinz Granitza, Pato Margetic, Batata, Bret Hall, and other former Sting stars suited up for the Power over the years, who played mostly at the suburban Rosemont Horizon. The franchise moved to Edmonton in 1996 after years of behind-the-scenes turmoil.
The Chicago Shoccers were an indoor soccer team that played two seasons in the American Indoor Soccer Association between 1985 and 1987. Chicago had two pro indoor teams at the time. The popularity of the Chicago Sting of the Major Indoor Soccer League had dipped from the team’s early 80’s peak, when they were virtually unbeatable at Chicago Stadium. But they were still in existence and vastly overshadowed the Shoccers, who were essentially a minor league club playing in second rate venues.
The Chicago Condors were a blink-and-you-missed-’em women’s basketball franchise in the defunct American Basketball League (1996-1998). Through little fault of their own, the Condors went out of business after just 12 games and six weeks of play when the ABL went bankrupt in midseason on December 22, 1998.
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