
Raleigh IceCaps
The Raleigh IceCaps were a hockey team that played in North Carolina’s capital as members of the East Coast Hockey League from 1991 to 1998.

The Raleigh IceCaps were a hockey team that played in North Carolina’s capital as members of the East Coast Hockey League from 1991 to 1998.

American Football Association (1977-1983) Born: May 25, 1977 – AFA founding franchise Folded: 1983 First Game: July 2, 1977 (W 77-0 vs. Fort Worth Stars) Last Game: July 23, 1983 (L 39-0 @ Charlotte Storm) AFA Champions: None 1977-1978: Harlandale Stadium 1977: South San Antonio Stadium 1977: Northside Stadium 1977-1983: Alamo Stadium Opened: September 20,

The Baltimore Elite Giants got their start in Nashville, before moving to Columbus, Ohio for one year, then to Washington, D.C. They moved down the road in Baltimore in 1938 and played there until 1950, before spending their final season back in Tennessee.

The original Winnipeg Jets were charter members of the WHA in 1972. They moved to the NHL in 1979, along with three other WHA squads. In 1995, they were sold and moved to Phoenix for the 1996-97 hockey season. The name was revived when the Atlanta Thrashers moved to Manitoba in 2011 and assumed the Jets name but not their history.

The Atlantic City Surf were one of the six original franchises in the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball. The Atlantic League was (and remains) the most ambitious league to arise out of the independent baseball boom of the 1990’s. The Surf played at the Sandcastle, a 5,900-seat ballpark built on the grounds of Atlantic City’s municipal airport, Bader Field. The stadium was built with $11.5 million in Casino Reinvestment Development Authority funds and $3 million in taxpayer bonds.

The San Jose Grizzlies were a short-lived indoor soccer entry that competed in the summer-season Continental Indoor Soccer League in 1994 and 1995.
Two decades earlier, Grizzlies owner Milan Mandaric founded the Bay Area’s popular San Jose Earthquakes soccer team in the North American Soccer League. Serbian-American indoor star Preki arrived for the Grizzlies’ second and final season and won the CISL’s MVP award in 1995. It was the future Soccer Hall of Famer’s final season of indoor soccer before embarking on his equally legendary outdoor career with the U.S. Men’s National Team and in Major League Soccer in 1996.

Two-year Arena Football entry that set up shop at the Superdome in 1991 and 1992. Even among Arena Football diehards, the New Orleans Night are an obscure and rarely mentioned franchise. To the extent they are remembered at all, it is often for sporting garish Zubaz stripes on their uniforms as part of a 1991 promotional campaign with the flash-in-the-pan athletic apparel manufacturer.

The American Basketball Association (ABA) was formed in 1967 as a competitor to the established National Basketball Association (NBA). It started with 11 teams, and within a few years was angling for a merger with the older league. In 1976, the NBA took in four ABA teams, while three other surviving teams disbanded.

The Birmingham Barracudas were the final American expansion team awarded during the Canadian Football League’s failed incursion into the United States during the mid-1990’s.