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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 Kansas City Scouts were a professional ice hockey team in the National Hockey League (NHL) from 1974 to 1976. In 1976, the franchise relocated to Denver, and became the Colorado Rockies. In 1982, the Rockies relocated to New Jersey where they have since been known as the New Jersey Devils.
TD Place Arena, originally the Ottawa Civic Centre, is an indoor arena located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The arena can seat 5,500 people, and with the upper bowl open it can hold 8,585 people. Opened in December 1967, it is used primarily for sports, including curling, figure skating, ice hockey, and lacrosse. The arena has hosted Canadian and world championships in figure skating, curling, and ice hockey, including the first women's world ice hockey championship in 1990. It is also used for concerts and conventions such as Ottawa SuperEX.
Ralph Gerald Backstrom was a Canadian professional ice hockey centre and later a coach, entrepreneur and hockey executive. He played in the National Hockey League with the Montreal Canadiens, Los Angeles Kings, and Chicago Black Hawks between 1956 and 1973. He also played in the World Hockey Association with the Chicago Cougars, Denver Spurs/Ottawa Civics, and New England Whalers from 1973 to 1977. With the Canadiens, he won the Stanley Cup six times, and won the Calder Memorial Trophy as the NHL's rookie of the year in 1959. After retiring he served as head coach of the University of Denver Pioneers for several years in the 1980s.
The Chicago Cougars were a franchise in the World Hockey Association from 1972 to 1975. The Cougars played their home games in the International Amphitheatre. During the 1974 Avco Cup Finals against Gordie Howe and the Houston Aeros, the team's two home games were played at the Randhurst Twin Ice Arena in suburban Mount Prospect. This was because a presentation of Peter Pan starring gymnast Cathy Rigby was booked into the Amphitheatre when the National Hockey League's Chicago Blackhawks and the National Basketball Association's Chicago Bulls had both entered their own playoffs, making the Chicago Stadium unavailable for either the Cougars or Peter Pan.
The Denver Spurs were a professional ice hockey team based in Denver. The Spurs began play in the Western Hockey League in 1968, and played at the Denver Coliseum. The Spurs became the first professional sports team in Colorado to win a championship in 1971–72. After the WHL folded in 1974, the team transferred to the Central Hockey League for the 1974–75 season.
The Birmingham Bulls were a professional ice hockey team based in Birmingham, Alabama. They played in the World Hockey Association from 1976 to 1979 and the Central Hockey League from 1979 to 1981. The Bulls played their home games at the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Center.
The 1975–76 WHA season was the fourth season of the World Hockey Association. After the Baltimore Blades and Chicago Cougars folded, the league stayed at 14 teams by adding the Cincinnati Stingers and Denver Spurs. In addition, the Vancouver Blazers franchise moved to Calgary and became the Cowboys. Midway through the season, the Spurs moved to Ottawa and became the Civics, though the team folded shortly thereafter when the sale of the franchise fell through. The Minnesota Fighting Saints became the second team to fold mid-season when the franchise was not financially successful, despite having a winning record at the time. Theoretically, fourteen teams would play 80 games each, but only twelve teams finished the season, with cancelled games involving the Civics or Saints being rescheduled on the fly, and four of five Canadian Division teams played 81 games, as a result.
The Colorado Rockies were a professional ice hockey team in the National Hockey League (NHL) that played in Denver from 1976 to 1982. They were founded as the Kansas City Scouts, an expansion team that began play in the NHL in the 1974–75 season. The Scouts moved from Kansas City, Missouri, to Denver for the 1976–77 season. After six seasons in Denver, the franchise moved to East Rutherford, New Jersey, for the 1982–83 season and was renamed the New Jersey Devils. Denver went without an NHL team until the Quebec Nordiques relocated to become the Colorado Avalanche following the 1994–95 season. The Rockies name itself would be applied to Denver's Major League Baseball expansion team that began play in 1993.
This is a list of sports in Denver, Colorado, United States. Denver is home to many professional sports teams who are based out of Denver and surrounding cities in the metropolitan area. It is also one of the twelve American cities to house a team from each of the U.S. cities with teams from four major league sports. All four of its teams play their home games near downtown with three active sports venues which includes Empower Field at Mile High, home of the Denver Broncos; Ball Arena, home of the Colorado Avalanche and Denver Nuggets; and Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies. There is also a Major League Soccer (MLS) team based in the Denver metro area, but they do not play their home games in the city of Denver and is located in nearby Commerce City.
The Ottawa Senators, also known as the Ottawa Commandos and Senior Senators, was an amateur, later semi-professional, senior-level men's ice hockey team based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. In 1934, the Ottawa Auditorium, owners of the Ottawa Hockey Association decided it could no longer operate the Senators of the National Hockey League in Ottawa due to mounting financial losses. The Association split its hockey operations, relocating the NHL franchise to St. Louis, and continuing the Senators as an amateur club. The club operated from 1934 until 1955, winning the Allan Cup Canadian men's senior ice hockey championship in 1943, 1948 and 1949. During the war years from 1942 until 1944, it operated as the Ottawa Commandos.
In Ottawa, Canada, ice hockey clubs date back to the first decade of recorded organized ice hockey play. The men's senior-level Ottawa Hockey Club is known to have played in a Canadian championship in 1884. Today, Ottawa hockey clubs are represented in all age brackets, in both men's and women's, in amateur and professional.
The 1976–77 Colorado Rockies season was the Rockies' first season. The Kansas City Scouts relocated in the off-season to Denver. With the World Hockey Association's Denver Spurs leaving Denver in a midnight move to Ottawa, Ontario just about 10 months earlier, Denver would get a franchise and the team would be anointed the Colorado Rockies. The team moved from Kansas City, which was a two-year NHL franchise that struggled from the beginning.
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.
Ed Pizunski is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player.
The 1975–76 Denver Spurs/Ottawa Civics season was the ill-fated single season of operation of the Denver Spurs/Ottawa Civics in the World Hockey Association (WHA). The Spurs began the season in Denver, Colorado but relocated to Ottawa, Ontario before giving up for good after 41 games.
The Long Island Cougars were a minor league professional ice hockey team that played at the Long Island Arena in Commack, New York, from 1973 to 1975. The Cougars were a member of the North American Hockey League, and were runners up for the Lockhart Trophy to the Syracuse Blazers in the 1973–74 season.
The Denver Cutthroats were a minor league ice hockey team, as a member of the Central Hockey League, that began play in the 2012–13 season. They served as a farm team of the National Hockey League's Colorado Avalanche and the American Hockey League's Lake Erie Monsters. Based in Denver, Colorado, the Cutthroats played their home games at the Denver Coliseum. On August 20, 2014, after only two seasons in the CHL, the Cutthroats announced they would go dormant for the 2014–15 season, with hopes to gain additional investors for 2015–16.