The Barons originated as the California Golden Seals in the 1967 NHL expansion. Based at the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum Arena in Oakland, California; they were the least successful of the six teams added as part of that expansion. They never had a winning record and only made the playoffs twice. Those two seasons were the only times that the franchise came close to contention.
However, the Seals' on-ice struggles were the least of their concerns. The team was sold three times, and spent much of 1974 and 1975 as wards of the league. The team never drew well; attendance was so poor that talk of relocation began as early as the inaugural season. However, the league's U.S. television contract with CBS required two teams in California. Even after the NHL and CBS parted ways, the league was reluctant to abandon a market as large as the Bay Area.
The Barons played in the suburban Richfield Coliseum in Richfield, Ohio, halfway between Cleveland and Akron. It had originally been built for the WHA's Crusaders (who left to become the second incarnation of the Minnesota Fighting Saints for the 1976–77 WHA season on the Barons' arrival) and the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers. At the time, the Richfield Coliseum had the largest seating capacity in the NHL, at 18,544.
On paper, the move to Cleveland should have been a shot in the arm for the franchise. Cleveland had been mentioned as a possible NHL city as early as 1935, when the then-struggling Montreal Canadiens considered moving there.[1] It had also been turned down for an NHL expansion team on three previous occasions, in the 1950s and 1960s. Additionally, the Barons (and their previous incarnations, the Indians and Falcons) had been one of the pillars of the AHL and its predecessors for 44 years.
The NHL approved the move to Cleveland on July 14, 1976, but details were not finalized until late August, less than six weeks before the season opener. There was little time or money for promotion of the new team, and the Barons never recovered from this lack of visibility. They never came close to filling the Coliseum in their two years in Cleveland. The team's home opener on October 7, 1976, drew only 8,900 fans.[4] They drew 10,000 or more fans in only seven out of 40 home games. Attendance was worse than it had been in Oakland and the team did not draw as many fans as the WHA's Crusaders had.[5] The Barons were also troubled by an unfavorable lease with the Coliseum.
During the All-Star Break in January 1977, Swig hinted the team might not finish the season because of payroll difficulties. He asked the board of governors for a bailout. The board turned down Swig's request almost out of hand. At the time, no one in the NHL offices believed that the Barons' situation was nearly as dire as Swig claimed. No NHL team had folded since the Montreal Maroons had their franchise formally canceled in 1947 after not icing a team since 1938. No team had folded in mid-season since the Montreal Wanderers disbanded during the NHL's inaugural season in 1917–18 after their arena burned down. The situation quickly deteriorated. Amid $2.4 million in losses, team workers went unpaid for two months. The bottom fell out in February, when Swig asked the players to take a 27 percent pay cut. The players turned this request down, and the team missed two payrolls. The league seriously considered folding the team and holding a dispersal draft for the players; by then, some of the Barons' players were actively being courted by other teams. By February 18, the players had lost their patience, and threatened to not take the ice for their game against the Colorado Rockies. Wanting to avoid the embarrassment of a player strike, as well as a team folding at mid-season (the latter had previously happened in the rival WHA), Swig, the league and the NHLPA reached a last-minute deal to cover the players' salaries for the rest of the season. Swig contributed $350,000, the other 17 owners put up $20,000 each, and the NHLPA lent the team $600,000. After the team finished last in the Adams Division again, Swig sold his interest to Gund and his brother Gordon.[1]
For 1977–78, the Gunds poured money into the team, and it seemed to make a difference at first. The Barons stunned the defending Stanley Cup champion Montreal Canadiens on November 23 before a boisterous crowd of 12,859. After a brief slump, general manager Harry Howell pulled off several trades in an attempt to make the team tougher. It initially paid off, and the Barons knocked off three of the NHL's top teams, the Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Islanders and Buffalo Sabres in consecutive games in January 1978. A few weeks later, a record crowd of 13,110 saw the Barons tie the Philadelphia Flyers 2–2. It did not last; they only won a total of four games in February and March, crumbling to last place again.
Merger and aftermath
The Gunds aggressively marketed the team, but got little to show for it. The Barons only attracted a total of 7,000 fans during their three-game winning streak in January. They were also unable to get favorable deals for radio or television, denying them another potential revenue stream.[1] After the season, the Gunds tried to buy the Coliseum, but failed. (They would later succeed in buying the Coliseum, and eventually bought the Cavaliers from Ted Stepien in 1983).
With the Barons barely registering on Cleveland's sports landscape, the Gunds reluctantly decided to write them off as a lost cause and search for a way out. Years later, Gordon Gund recalled that the decision to disband the team was especially painful given his family's roots in Cleveland.[1] Kenneth Schnitzer, owner of the WHA's Houston Aeros (who were not being included as part of any proposed merger between the two leagues at the time), offered to buy the Barons and relocate them to Houston, but nothing came of it.
Meanwhile, the consortium[6] that owned the Minnesota North Stars was having financial difficulties similar to those faced by the Barons. The Gunds began talks with the North Stars and broached the possibility of merging both teams. The league was initially cool to the idea, but ultimately concluded that it would be far better in the long term to have one team fold rather than two.[1] The league granted final approval for the merger on June 14, 1978.[7] The amalgamated team retained the North Stars' name, colors, and history, with the wealthier Gunds as majority owners.
The NHL finally agreed to absorb the WHA one year later, a development which resulted in a two decade absence of major league hockey in Ohio since the WHA's Cincinnati Stingers were not included in the merger. However, the NHL worked to keep interest in hockey alive in the state. The Pittsburgh Penguins, who from 1978 to 1991 were owned by Northeast Ohio native Edward J. DeBartolo, Sr., played two designated home games at the Richfield Coliseum in the early 1990s before the arena was demolished and the land added to Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The NHL finally returned to Ohio in 2000 with the expansion Columbus Blue Jackets.
Dennis Maruk was the last Baron (and last Golden Seal as well) to be active in the NHL, retiring from the North Stars after the 1988–89 season with 356 goals in 888 games.
With the North Stars continuing to struggle financially, the Gunds began looking to bring NHL hockey back to the Bay Area. By the late 1980s, they sought to relocate the North Stars but were blocked by the league. In 1991, the Gunds were granted an expansion franchise in San Jose, which became the San Jose Sharks, in return for selling their stake in the North Stars to a group led by Hartford Whalers' founder Howard Baldwin. As a compromise, the league arranged a special dispersal and expansion draft in which the Sharks claimed 16 North Stars players in a dispersal draft, with both teams then allowed to choose players in an expansion draft.
Although the Sharks are officially a separate franchise from the Seals/Golden Seals/Barons, the arrangement effectively reversed the original Barons-North Stars merger, with the Sharks occupying the same market as the Golden Seals prior to their move to Cleveland. The new North Stars owners ultimately moved their team to Dallas as the Dallas Stars in 1993. The Gunds also later moved an existing American Hockey League team from Lexington, Kentucky, to Cleveland, operating the Cleveland Barons from 2001 to 2006 as the Sharks' minor league affiliate.
Season-by-season record
Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against, PIM = Penalties in minutes
In their two years in Cleveland, Larry Hirsch[8] served as the Barons' radio play-by-play announcer on WJW.[9] On the television side, WUAB channel 43[10] did a very limited schedule with Steve Albert[11] and Dick Hammer[12] on commentary in 1976–77, and perhaps only one game in 1977–78 with Charlie Steiner and Pete Franklin on commentary.
The World Hockey Association was a professional ice hockey major league that operated in North America from 1972 to 1979. It was the first major league to compete with the National Hockey League (NHL) since the collapse of the Western Hockey League in 1926. Although the WHA was not the first league since that time to attempt to challenge the NHL's supremacy, it was by far the most successful in the modern era.
The Minnesota North Stars were a professional ice hockey team in the National Hockey League (NHL) for 26 seasons, from 1967 to 1993. The North Stars played their home games at the Met Center in Bloomington, Minnesota, and the team's colors for most of its history were green, yellow, gold and white. The North Stars played 2,062 regular season games and made the NHL playoffs 17 times, including two Stanley Cup Finals appearances, but were unable to win the Stanley Cup. After the 1992–93 season, the franchise moved to Dallas, and the team was renamed the Dallas Stars.
The California Golden Seals were a professional ice hockey club that competed in the National Hockey League (NHL) from 1967 to 1976. Based in Oakland, California, they played their home games at the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum Arena. The Seals were one of six teams added to the league as part of the 1967 NHL expansion. Initially named the California Seals, the team was renamed the Oakland Seals during the 1967–68 season and then the Bay Area Seals in 1970 before becoming the California Golden Seals the same year.
The Cleveland Barons were a professional American ice hockey team in the American Hockey League. They played in Cleveland, Ohio, at Gund Arena between 2001 and 2006.
The Minnesota Fighting Saints was the name of two professional ice hockey teams based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, that played in the World Hockey Association. The first team was one of the WHA's original twelve franchises, playing from 1972 to 1976. The second team was relocated from Cleveland, Ohio, and played for part of the 1976–77 season. Neither edition of the franchise completed its final season of play.
The San Francisco Seals were a minor league hockey team which played in the Western Hockey League from 1961 to 1967.
Gordon Gund is an American businessman and professional sports owner. He is the CEO of Gund Investment Corporation. He is the former co-owner of the San Jose Sharks from 1992 to 2002, former principal owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers from 1983 to 2005, and former principal owner of the Cleveland Rockers from 1997 to 2003. Gund lost his sight to retinitis pigmentosa and was a co-founder of Foundation Fighting Blindness.
The Houston Aeros were a professional ice hockey team in the World Hockey Association (WHA) from 1972 to 1978.
The National Hockey League's Adams Division was formed in 1974 as part of the Prince of Wales Conference. The division existed for 19 seasons until 1993. It was named in honour of Charles Francis Adams, the founder of the Boston Bruins. It is the forerunner of the NHL's Northeast Division, which later became the Atlantic Division.
The 1991 NHL Dispersal and Expansion Drafts were held via telephone conference call on May 30, 1991. The dispersal draft took place to fill the roster of the league's only expansion team for the 1991–92 season, the San Jose Sharks, first from the Minnesota North Stars pool of players, and then from the rest of the NHL pool of players.
Ralph Leo Klassen was a Canadian professional ice hockey player who played 497 games in the National Hockey League. In Klassen's ten-year career, he played for the California Golden Seals, Cleveland Barons, Colorado Rockies, and St. Louis Blues.
The 1991–92 San Jose Sharks season was the Sharks' inaugural season. They finished in sixth place in the Smythe Division with a record of 17 wins, 58 losses, and 5 ties for 39 points. Goaltender Jeff Hackett was named team MVP.
The expansion era of the National Hockey League (NHL) began when six new teams were added for the 1967–68 season, ending the Original Six era. The six existing teams were grouped into the newly created East Division, and the expansion teams—the Los Angeles Kings, Minnesota North Stars, Oakland Seals, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins and St. Louis Blues—formed the West Division.
The 1975–76 California Golden Seals season would be the Seals' ninth and final season in the Bay Area of California. The Seals were led by rookie Dennis Maruk.
The 1979 NHL expansion was the culmination of several years of negotiations between the National Hockey League (NHL) and the World Hockey Association (WHA) that resulted in the WHA and its six surviving franchises folding in return for the owners of four of those teams being granted expansion franchises that commenced play in the NHL for the 1979–80 season. The agreement officially took effect on June 22, 1979. The agreement ended the seven-year existence of the WHA and re-established the NHL as the lone major league in North American professional ice hockey.
The following is a complete history of organizational changes in the National Hockey League (NHL). The NHL was founded in 1917 as a successor to the National Hockey Association (NHA), starting out with four teams from the predecessor league, and eventually grew to thirty-two in its current state. The NHL has expanded and contracted numerous times throughout its history, including in 1979 when four teams came over from the World Hockey Association (WHA).
The 1967 National Hockey League (NHL) expansion added six new franchises for the 1967–68 season, doubling the size of the league to 12 teams. It was the largest expansion undertaken at one time by an established major sports league and the first change in the composition of the NHL since 1942, ending the era of the Original Six.
The 1978 NHL Dispersal Draft was held on June 15, 1978. It was the result of the merger of two National Hockey League (NHL) teams, the Cleveland Barons and the Minnesota North Stars. The NHL granted majority ownership of the North Stars to Barons owners Gordon Gund and George Gund III, after their bid to buy the Barons' home arena failed, and as the League feared the ownership group of the North Stars, another team performing poorly amid waning fan interest, would cease that team’s operations. To prevent the North Stars from folding, the NHL allowed the Gunds to merge them with the Barons; the Gunds would be majority owners of the resulting team, which stayed in Minnesota and used the North Stars' name.
Currier, Steve (2017), The California Golden Seals: A Tale of White Skates, Red Ink, and One of the NHL's Most Outlandish Teams, Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, ISBN978-0-8032-8848-5
Further reading
Webster, Gary (2021), The NHL's Mistake by the Lake: A History of the Cleveland Barons, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, ISBN978-1-4766-8584-7
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