The Toronto Toros started out as the Ottawa Nationals, a charter member of the World Hockey Association (WHA) in 1972. They moved to Toronto for their playoff games and were referred to as the Ontario Nationals. Less than a month later, the team was sold and permantely relocated to Toronto, where the became the Toros.
The Chicago Rockets were charter members of the All-America Football Conference (AAFC), a league that attempted to rival the National Football League for pro football supremacy in the post-WWII years of 1946-1949. The Rockets were the city’s third pro football team, joining the NFL’s Bears and Cardinals. In 1949, the team was sold and renamed the Hornets. They folded when the NFL absorbed three AAFC, the Hornets not being one of them.
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 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.
SUPER SOCCER LEAGUE Announced: January 5, 1978 Vanished: Summer 1978 Founders: Dennis Murphy, Jerry Saperstein, Richard Ragone, Norm Sutherland, Fredric Wise & Dr. Elliott Gorin Background Periodically, some persuasive entrepreneur claims to have developed the sport of the future. And from the 1960’s to the 1990’s that man was
The original Georgia Force Arena Football League team played for seven seasons between 2002 and 2008, ping-ponging back-and-forth over the years between Philips Arena in downtown Atlanta and the suburban Arena at Gwinnett Center. Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank owned the team for its final four seasons from 2005 to 2008. The Force’s best season was in 2005, when the team appeared in the Arena Bowl XIX championship game, losing 51-48 to the Colorado Crush. The team disbanded in 2009 as part of the original Arena Football League’s bankruptcy and closure. A revived and much lower-budget edition of the Georgia Force played briefly in 2011-2012 in a re-booted version of the Arena Football League.
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.
Canadian Football League (1994) Born: July 26, 1993 – CFL expansion franchise Folded: April 1995 First Game: July 8, 1994 (W 32-26 @ Sacramento Gold Miners) Last Game: November 5, 1994 (L 51-10 @ Edmonton Eskimos) Grey Cup Championships: None Sam Boyd Stadium (31,000) Opened: 1971 Team Colors: Desert Sand, Black & White Owner: Nick
