Cleveland Crusaders

Cleveland Crusaders
founding	June 21, 1972
resolution	1977
history	Calgary Broncos founding Cleveland Crusaders 1972 - 1976 Minnesota Fighting Saints 1976 - 1977
Stadion	Cleveland Arena 1972–1974 Richfield Coliseum 1974–1976
Location	Cleveland , Ohio
Team colors	purple, black & white
Avco World Trophies	no
Division title	no

The Cleveland Crusaders were an ice hockey team from Cleveland , Ohio that was active in the North American World Hockey Association (WHA) from 1972 to 1976 . The team moved to Minnesota in 1976 and revived the Minnesota Fighting Saints there .

history

In November 1971, the WHA secured a franchise for the Canadian city of Calgary . The aim was to establish a rival to the Alberta Oilers . The Calgary Broncos , as the planned name, were among the first ten teams that had been planned for the new league. But the financing was on shaky feet and so it was decided in April 1972 to take Calgary out of the running.

At the time, Nick Mileti, the owner of the Cleveland Arena and co-owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team, the Cleveland Indians baseball team, and the Cleveland Barons who played in the American Hockey League , was looking for a hockey team in a top league. He applied for a team for the expansion that was planned for the 1974/75 season . After the bid went to Kansas City and Washington, the disappointed Mileti looked for a team in the WHA, which was about to start their first season. An agreement was reached quickly and Mileti got the Broncos legacy for the twelfth team of the WHA. The season was about to start and the Broncos hadn't signed a player yet.

The new team had laid the fishing rod after three players from the New York Rangers . Tempting offers were made to Vic Hadfield , Rod Gilbert and Brad Park , but the Rangers countered the offer and held their players. Mileti had at least indicated his willingness to invest. The first success was the signing of Boston goalkeeper Gerry Cheevers who signed a five-year deal. The rest of the squad was filled with mostly unknown players. The Crusaders started their first season very defensively . One tried to build on the strength of Cheevers and his good performance with solid cover to support defender Paul Shmyr . On the offensive, especially Ron Buchanan developed , who led the team's scorer rating with 81 points. With the second place they reached a very respectable position and with only 239 goals conceded they were front runner in the league. After a clear progress in the first playoff round, they lost in the semifinals to the eventual champions, the New England Whalers , in five games, with all games being very close. With good performances, they punched almost 5,300 spectators in the Cleveland Arena and the playoffs came to over 6,000 spectators on average.

Despite weaker performance in the 1973/74 season , which was also due to a prolonged injury to Buchanan, the number of spectators increased to over 6,200 and over 8,000 in the playoffs, which were over after the first round.

After two years, the Crusaders were one of the successful and well-running WHA franchises. With the Richfield Coliseum, Mileti had built a new stadium with a capacity of 19,861 spectators. The jewelry box was intended to speed up the Crusaders' rise, but it turned out to be an unfortunate decision. The first two home games in the new stadium had to be canceled due to bad ice. Mileti had hoped to attract additional spectators by relocating the arena from Cleveland, but despite a respectable 7,000 spectators, the mood always suffered from the 12,000 empty seats. The newly acquired Rich LeDuc was the best scorer with 66 points, but the team stuck to its defensive approach and did not play attractive ice hockey.

In 1975, Mileti had given the team to Jay Moore and he was not popular with either the fans or the players. At the start of the 1975/76 season , he made no secret of his intention to buy an NHL team and bring it to Cleveland. The audience tended towards 6,000. As the season progressed, the team's head Gerry Cheevers left the Crusaders and returned to the Boston Bruins . Thanks to a good performance by Ron Ward , who was the best scorer with 82 points, they reached the playoffs. In the playoffs only 4,000 spectators came and after the quick elimination the Crusaders were a team without a home. The NHL had decided with the Cleveland Barons to establish an NHL team in the city. Moore was not involved in this.

At first they considered moving to Florida. The move seemed safe for a long time, until Mileti, who had meanwhile taken over the team again, got a better offer from Minnesota. After the Fighting Saints had stopped playing there during the last season, they now hoped to win over the ice hockey enthusiastic audience with a new team and started the attempt with the new Minnesota Fighting Saints .