The Miami Screaming Eagles were a professional ice hockey team that had intended to play in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, US. The Screaming Eagles were charter members of the

World Hockey Association The World Hockey Association (french: Association mondiale de hockey) was a professional ice hockey major league that operated in North America from 1972 to 1979. It was the first major league to compete with the National Hockey League (NHL) ...

, but never played a game in Miami due to the only available arena being unfit for use. The franchise license was purchased and moved, becoming the

Philadelphia Blazers The Philadelphia Blazers were an ice hockey franchise in the World Hockey Association (WHA) for the 1972–73 WHA season based in Philadelphia. The team's home ice was the Philadelphia Convention Hall and Civic Center. The franchise was origina ...

for the WHA's inaugural season.

History

The Screaming Eagles franchise was the second attempt at a professional hockey team for the South Florida market, since the folding of the original Tropical Hockey League in 1939. The first came two years prior; Seymour H. Knox III, Northrup R. Knox and Robert O. Swados, the owners of the

Buffalo Sabres The Buffalo Sabres are a professional ice hockey team based in Buffalo, New York. The Sabres compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. The team was established in 1970, along w ...

, were awarded an

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 developmental league for the National Hockey League (NHL). Since the 2010–11 season, every team in the le ...

franchise in 1970. The Knox-Swados consortium intended on placing their AHL team in South Florida; the AHL refused to allow a team to play in a market that distant (the AHL had no teams south of Virginia at the time). The proposed team was instead placed in

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wi ...

and named the Cincinnati Swords. Businessman Herb Martin bought a franchise in the WHA in 1972. The Screaming Eagles made a splash immediately by signing

Bernie Parent Bernard Marcel Parent (born April 3, 1945) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey goaltender who played 13 National Hockey League (NHL) seasons with the Philadelphia Flyers, Boston Bruins, and Toronto Maple Leafs, and also spent one seaso ...

from the

Toronto Maple Leafs The Toronto Maple Leafs (officially the Toronto Maple Leaf Hockey Club and often referred to as the Leafs) are a professional ice hockey team based in Toronto. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Div ...

—the first

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

star inked by the rebel league—and

Boston Bruins The Boston Bruins are a professional ice hockey team based in Boston. The Bruins compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. The team has been in existence since 1924, making t ...

standout Derek Sanderson. Martin developed a unique plan to build an arena within the walls of four office buildings to create what he called the Executive Square Arena. This new arena was to have been a showcase for the new league. The WHA had even planned to open their season in Miami on October 6, 1972 by hosting the Winnipeg Jets in the new arena. But the plans started to fall apart when construction of the proposed arena was halted. Dade County cited failure to comply with a zoning ordinance which requires one parking spot for every four seats in the arena. At a league meeting in Chicago, the WHA would not accept Miami's $100,000 performance bond because of the lack of an arena to open the season. The only other options for a home arena for the Screaming Eagles had they chosen to stay in South Florida would have been the

Miami Beach Convention Center The Miami Beach Convention Center (originally the Miami Beach Exhibition Hall) is a convention center located in Miami Beach, Florida. Originally opened in 1958, the venue was renovated from 2015-2018 for $620 million. The re-imagined and enhance ...

or the then-new

Hollywood Sportatorium The Hollywood Sportatorium was an indoor arena in Pembroke Pines, Florida (originally Hollywood), located at 17171 Pines Boulevard (originally 16661 West Hollywood Boulevard). The Sportatorium was from downtown Miami and from downtown Fort L ...

. But Martin felt neither site was suitable even for temporary use; the Convention Center held only a few thousand, and the Sportatorium had no air conditioning or permanent seats, and the roof was partially open. (Later, when the arena was fully enclosed and expanded, attempts were made to bring in another WHA franchise, but to no avail.) Unable to find a solution to the arena problem, on April 28, 1972, Gary Davidson (the President of the WHA) notified Herb Martin that his club's franchise agreement in the new league had been terminated and that the Miami Screaming Eagles were no longer members of the WHA. In June 1972, Bernard Brown and James Cooper were granted the rights to the Miami Screaming Eagles along with the players (namely Bernie Parent) that were under contract with the team, from Herb Martin. Brown and Cooper then relocated the franchise to Philadelphia (where Parent had previously played for the NHL Flyers, and would again) and renamed the team the Blazers.http://www.philablazers.com/gpage.html Two decades later, Miami was awarded the

's Florida Panthers franchise. Although they never iced a team, replicas of the projected Screaming Eagles jersey continue to sell along with those of actual WHA teams.

References

*https://www.webcitation.org/5kmzoi3Mq?url=http://www.geocities.com/Pipeline/5206/Calgary/ccowboys.html *https://www.webcitation.org/5kmzpgRSa?url=http://www.geocities.com/Pipeline/5206/Vancouver/vblazers.html *https://www.webcitation.org/5kmzpNRBs?url=http://www.geocities.com/Pipeline/5206/Philadelphia/pblazers.html *https://www.webcitation.org/5kmzp2p5b?url=http://www.geocities.com/Pipeline/5206/Charter/miami.html

External links

Unofficial Home of the Philadelphia BlazersPhiladelphia Blazers HistoryNHL.com article about the Philadelphia Blazers
{{WHA Defunct ice hockey teams in the United States World Hockey Association teams Ice hockey clubs established in 1972 Ice hockey clubs disestablished in 1972 1972 establishments in Florida 1972 disestablishments in Florida

History

See also

References

External links