Minnesota Fighting Saints

Minnesota Fighting Saints
founding	1st August 1971
resolution	17th January 1977
history	Part I: Minnesota Fighting Saints 1972 - 1976 Part II: Calgary Broncos founding Cleveland Crusaders 1972 - 1976 Minnesota Fighting Saints 1976 - 1977
Stadion	St. Paul Auditorium 1972 St. Paul Civic Center 1973–1977
Location	St. Paul , Minnesota
Team colors	royal blue , gold & white 1972–1976 scarlet red, gold & white 1976–1977
Avco World Trophies	no
Division title	no

The Minnesota Fighting Saints were an ice hockey team from St. Paul , Minnesota that was active in the North American World Hockey Association (WHA) from 1972 to 1977 . The team had to stop playing in 1976 after financial problems. After the Cleveland Crusaders moved to St. Paul, the franchise revived for the coming season, but could not bring this season to an end either.

history

In August 1971, St. Paul was awarded a franchise in the WHA. While many of the early locations changed by the time the game began, it was also possible to play at the originally planned location.

In St. Paul they were proud to have their own team and the competition with the Minnesota North Stars , who played on the other side of the Mississippi in Minneapolis , had a positive effect on the team. After the new St. Paul Civic Center was not yet completed at the beginning of the 1972/73 season , the time until the end of 1972 was bridged in the Metropolitan Center .

While there was hardly a team in the NHL that had more than two US players in its ranks, the Fighting Saints relied on US players. Over a dozen players were born in the United States. One looked in vain for stars at the Saints. Worth mentioning in the first season's squad were Wayne Connelly , who was the team's top scorer with 70 points, and Mike Antonovich , then 21 , who was to become one of the players who played the most WHA games. With almost 6,000 spectators in the first season, they had a solid fan base. To reach the playoffs you had to defeat the Alberta Oilers in a playoff . In the first round they made life difficult for the Winnipeg Jets , but were eliminated.

In the 1973/74 season the team blossomed. A stroke of luck was Mike Walton , who had previously played a decent role in the NHL with the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Boston Bruins . In the WHA he was top scorer straight away with 117 points. Behind the Houston Eros they came in second. In the first playoff round, the Edmonton Oilers were eliminated and in the second round they lost to Houston. After you could play in the St. Paul Civic Center this season , which had a place for 15,705 spectators, 81,569 spectators saw the six playoff games.

Again led by Walton and Connolly, the Saints convinced with a compact squad. In the 1974/75 season nine players scored more than 15 goals. Again the team survived the first play-off round, but as in the previous year, the play-offs, which attracted more than 10,000 spectators per game, ended in the semifinals. The sad climax was a punch by Minnesota's penalty box king and crowd favorite Gord Gallant against his own coach Harry Neale after the first playoff game. Gallant was suspended and given up immediately after playing time.

For the 1975/76 season one made serious efforts with Bobby Orr to commit the superstar of the NHL, but the refused. Instead, they brought in Dave Keon, an experienced NHL player. From a sporting point of view, the playoffs were well on their way and the average attendance was over 8,000. But the solvency of the team was limited and the players did not get their salaries. The league was still battered by the abandonment of the Ottawa Civics when the lights went out in Minnesota after 59 games on February 27, 1976.

Minnesota Fighting Saints II

After an NHL team moved into Cleveland, the WHA team of the Cleveland Crusaders looked for a new home and finally decided to rely on the solid fan base of the Saints. The old name and logo were retained, but the club colors were replaced by scarlet red. Legally, the team was the successor to the Cleveland Crusaders, but in terms of content they tried to follow the old Fighting Saints and brought a number of players from the previous year back to Minnesota. Again, the team around Dave Keon and Mike Antonovich was successful in sport. The audience attendance of over 6,000 was decent, even if it did not match the previous years. A legal battle between the owners Nick Mileti and Bob Brown with the city of St. Paul forced the team to give up again on January 17, 1977.