The Richmond Wildcats played just 38 games in the faltering Southern Hockey League during the winter of 1976-77. Richmond’s crippling financial problems forced its players to play nearly half the 1976-77 season without salaries or insurance and contributed to the eventual collapse of the SHL midway through its fourth season.
The Border City Bandits were an ill-conceived minor league hockey outfit that went belly-up midway through their first and only Central Hockey League season during the winter of 2000-01. The border cities, in the Bandits case, were the twin cities of Texarkana on either side of the Arkansas-Texas boundary. The Bandits established their offices in Texarkana, Texas but played their games across the border in a converted rodeo arena in Texarkana, Arkansas.
The short-lived Denver Stars were the first and only champions of Major League Rodeo, a controversial 1978 start-up that sought to impose the conventions of American team sports leagues onto the rugged individualism of professional rodeo competition.
The Long Beach Chiefs were a professional basketball team that played at Long Beach Arena during November & December of 1962. The Chiefs were members of the American Basketball League (ABL), a wanna-be rival to the NBA formed by Harlem Globetrotters promoter Abe Saperstein the previous year. The team started out as the Hawaii Chiefs during the ABL’s debut season of 1961-62. Owner Art Kim moved the franchise to Long Beach for the league’s second season. But the league folded on New Year’s Eve 1962 without completing its schedule, taking the Chiefs down with it.
Continental Basketball Association (1991-2001) Born: September 1990 – CBA expansion franchise Folded: February 8, 2001 First Game: November 8, 1991 (L 99-89 vs. Columbus Horizon)
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