
New Orleans Buccaneers (1967-1970) ABA
A detailed history of the New Orleans Buccaneers (1967-1970) a founding member of the ABA that played three seasons in the Big Easy and later moved to Memphis.

A detailed history of the New Orleans Buccaneers (1967-1970) a founding member of the ABA that played three seasons in the Big Easy and later moved to Memphis.

The Quincy Giants were a minor league football outfit that played for one season in this border city on the southern edge of Boston during the fall of 1969. The franchise previously played in northern Massachusetts as the Lowell Giants from 1966 to 1968. The Giants were members of the Atlantic Coast Football League, competing against teams from Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

The Cleveland Buckeyes started as the Cincinnati-Cleveland Buckeyes in 1942, before settling permanently in Northern Ohio in 1943. The club won two league titles as well as a Negro World Series championship.

The Denver Spurs started in the Western Hockey League in 1968. When that circuit folded, they joined the Central Hockey League in 1974. The following year, they joined the World Hockey Association, but moved to Ottawa halfway through the season.

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 sport of indoor soccer spread across the country during the 1980’s and into the early 1990’s. Thanks to organizations like the Major Indoor Soccer League, National Professional Soccer League and the Continental Indoor Soccer League, practically every Major League city in the country had seen one or more indoor soccer teams come through town by 1999. Salt Lake City, Utah was an exception until the upstart World Indoor Soccer League (WISL) rolled into town at the E Center in West Valley in 1999.

The Manchester Wolves were New England’s sole entry in the sport of Arena Football throughout the team’s six seasons run from 2004 through 2009. The Wolves were part of Arena Football 2, a sprawling small market developmental league that served the more ambitious Arena Football League.

A detailed history of the Miami Floridians, later just The Floridians, the former Minnesota Muskies that played four seasons in the Sunshine State before folding.

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.