''For the Continental Football League team (1960s) known as the Philadelphia Bulldogs, see here.'' The Philadelphia Bulldogs were an

inline hockey Roller inline hockey, or inline hockey is a variant of hockey played on a hard, smooth surface, with players using inline skates to move and ice hockey sticks to shoot a hard, plastic puck into their opponent's goal to score points. The sport ...

team based in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. They were members of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of

Roller Hockey International Roller Hockey International was a professional inline hockey league that operated in North America from 1993 to 1999. It was the first major professional league for inline hockey. History League president Dennis Murphy had been involved in the ...

(RHI). They were part of the 1994 RHI Expansion. The Bulldogs were owned by NHL player agent Ron Salcer and actor

Tony Danza Tony Danza (born Anthony Salvatore Iadanza; April 21, 1951) is an American actor. He is known for co-starring in the television series ''Taxi'' (1978–1983) and '' Who's the Boss?'' (1984–1992), for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award a ...

. During the Bulldogs first season in 1994, the team's Head Coach and General Manager was former Philadelphia Flyers star Dave Schultz. The team was one of 12 added for the 1994, doubling the league in size to 24 after its inaugural season. In the February 1994 draft, the Bulldogs selected Dave Brown of the

Philadelphia Flyers The Philadelphia Flyers are a professional ice hockey team based in Philadelphia. The Flyers compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home games in Wells ...

, along with

Mitch Lamoureux Mitch Lamoureux (born August 22, 1962) is a Canadian retired professional ice hockey player. Lamoureux was born in Ottawa, Ontario, but grew up in Nepean, Ontario. He played in the NHL with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers. He was ...

and Tim Tookey, who would both go on to NHL careers, but were then playing for the Flyers' minor league farm team, the

Hershey Bears The Hershey Bears are a professional ice hockey team based in Hershey, Pennsylvania, a town located 14 miles east of the state capital of Harrisburg Harrisburg is the capital city of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the c ...

of the

American Hockey League The American Hockey League (AHL) is a professional ice hockey league based in the United States and Canada that serves as the primary Minor league#Ice hockey, developmental league for the National Hockey League (NHL). Since the 2010–11 AHL se ...

. The Bulldogs worked with the promotional staff at The Spectrum, their home arena, and took advantage of the celebrity owners to make local appearances and star in advertisements as part of their efforts to draw ticket sales. The Assistant Coaches were JoJoe Paterson and Special Assistant Coach Rick Mac Leish. The mascot was a bulldog named "Bruzer", who was played by Bob Strehlau 1994-1995, followed by Scott Dalfonso for the final season. Trainer was Dana Mc Guane and Assistant Trainer Chad Schultz. The team's VP of sales and marketing was Bob Kelly with Assistant General Manager Bill Crockett. By the 1995 season, the second for the Bulldogs, the team was struggling with attendance, which was a fraction of the numbers drawn by the Flyers and was a sharp drop from the average attendance of 4,300 during the 1994 season. Coach Dave Schultz, who had been given an 18% ownership stake in the team, was fired in the face of overspending and losses of $700,000 in their first season. Season ticket sales dropped from 900 in their inaugural season to 500 for year two, while single-game sales were minimal, even after cutting ticket prices across the board by $2 Al MacIsaac was hired to replace Dave Shultz for the 1995-96 and 1996-97 seasons. The Bulldogs responded and made a deep push into the Playoffs losing to the Montreal RoadRunner in OT during the 95-96 season. MacIsaac was selected that season as the Eastern Conference Allstar Head Coach. The game was played in Anaheim California. The team disbanded in 1996, after three seasons.Philadelphia Bulldogs Statistics and History
HockeyDB.com. Accessed January 24, 2017.

References

{{Defunct Philadelphia sports teams Roller Hockey International teams Sports clubs established in 1994 Sports clubs disestablished in 1996 1994 establishments in Pennsylvania 1996 disestablishments in Pennsylvania Sports in Philadelphia