Tag: Harold Ballard

1964 Denver Invaders program from the Western Hockey League

Denver Invaders

February 25, 2024

The Denver Invaders were an outstanding minor league hockey club that played one season in the Western Hockey League (WHL) during the winter of 1963-64. The Invaders relocated to Denver from Spokane, Washington the previous spring and served as a farm club of the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs. Under head coach Rudy Pilous, the team was terrific on the ice, dominating the WHL with a 44-23-3 regular season record. But lackluster attendance at the Denver Coliseum and disputes between local investors and the Maple Leafs led the franchise to leave Colorado for British Columbia after only a year.

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Bruce Boudreau St. Catharines Saints

St. Catharines Saints

October 7, 2018

This Ontario-based American Hockey League franchise served as the top minor league farm club of the Toronto Maple Leafs for four seasons between 1982 and 1986. The Saints were owned outright by the Maple Leafs during this period. After four years of poor attendance, the Leafs moved the Saints out of St. Catharines and into another small Ontario community – Newmarket – ahead of the 1986-87 AHL season.

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Bob Davidson Toronto Maple Leafs

Toronto Maple Leafs (1966-1969)

September 16, 2018

Ontario Senior A League (1966-1967) National Lacrosse League (1968) Eastern Lacrosse Association (1969) Born: 1966 Folded: Postseason 1969 First Game: Last Game: NLA Championships: None Maple Leaf Gardens

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1989 Newmarket Saints program from the American Hockey League

Newmarket Saints

January 9, 2015

The Newmarket Saints were the top farm club of the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs from 1986 through 1991. The team was owned directly by Maple Leaf Gardens Limited during the last dark years of the Harold Ballard era. The club played at the tiny 2,500-seater Ray Twinney Complex just north of Toronto. The arena’s insufficient size contributed to the Saints ranking dead last in American Hockey League attendance in all five seasons of their existence.

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1981 Cincinnati Tigers program from the Central Hockey League

Cincinnati Tigers

July 23, 2013

The Cincinnati Tigers were a very strong farm club of the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs in the winter of 1981-82. Despite the Tigers’ winning ways, Cincinnati was a graveyard for pro hockey teams and attendance was meager. The Leafs shut down the Tigers in May of 1982 after the club’s first and only season ended.  The Tigers became the third pro hockey team to fail at Riverfront Coliseum in just the past three years, following two different incarnations of the Cincinnati Stingers, which both bit the dust in 1979.

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