The Springfield Indians were one of the iconic names in all of minor league hockey. The club operated, in various leagues, for the better part of eight decades between 1926 and 1994 in the Western Massachusetts city of Springfield. The towering figure who loomed over the team for nearly fifty years was a man named Eddie Shore.
Springfield’s long-running American Hockey League franchise was known as the Indians by generations of Western Massachusetts hockey fans between 1926 and 1994. The exception was a span of eight seasons between 1967 and 1975 when the team took on the name ‘Kings’, following the contentious exile of the club’s iron-fisted ruler, Eddie Shore. The NHL’s Los Angeles Kings owned the Springfield club outright during these years and helped produce several outstanding future NHL stars, including Butch Goring and Billy Smith. The team changed its name back to the Indians midway through the 1974-75 season after Eddie Shore regained control of the club.
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