Philadelphia Blazers

Philadelphia Blazers
founding	1st November 1971
resolution	1973
history	Miami Screaming Eagles Foundation Philadelphia Blazers 1972 - 1973 Vancouver Blazers 1973 - 1975 Calgary Cowboys 1975 - 1977
Stadion	Philadelphia Civic Center
Location	Philadelphia , Pennsylvania
Team colors	Yellow & orange
Avco World Trophies	no
Division title	no

The Philadelphia Blazers were an ice hockey team from Philadelphia , Pennsylvania that was active in the North American World Hockey Association (WHA) from 1972 to 1973 . The franchise was originally founded in 1971 as the Miami Screaming Eagles . In 1973 the team moved to Vancouver and played there for three years as the Vancouver Blazers .

history

Established in Miami

Dennis Murphy was one of the founders of the WHA. He had headed a basketball team in the American Basketball Association with the Miami Floridians in Miami and now wanted to place an ice hockey team in Florida. On November 1, 1971, Herb Martin was awarded a franchise. The name chosen was Miami Screaming Eagles. In the plans of the officials, the opening game of the WHA should take place in Florida, where ice hockey was a sport not yet represented. They wanted to use an orange puck. It was clear to everyone in charge that the new sport could only be positioned accordingly with a sensational team. So they started looking for stars to sign for the new team. The first success was with Bernie Parent , the goalkeeper of the Toronto Maple Leafs . The Leafs did not believe in the solvency of the WHA and did not want to be pressured by any of their players. Next, Derek Sanderson came into the crosshairs of the Screaming Eagles. He was an ever-present player who never stepped out of the shadows of Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito at the Boston Bruins . However, when it became apparent in April 1972 that the planned stadium would not be built, the Miami location had to be abandoned.

Moved to Philadelphia

In June 1972, Bernard Brown and James Cooper were able to win two new owners who settled the team in Philadelphia as a competitor to the Philadelphia Flyers . Philadelphia Blazers was chosen as the new name. The Blazers took over the contract with Parent and stepped up their efforts on Sanderson. For $ 2.6 million, the most expensive contract at the time, he could be pulled from Boston. With John McKenzie they got a player-coach who had also previously been under contract with the Bruins. The game was played in the Philadelphia Civic Center, which had 8,000 seats.

The start of the 1972/73 season did not go as the owners expected at all, as Parent, McKenzie and Sanderson were injured. Sanderson in particular saw problems due to his high-value contract and paid him out of his contract shortly after the start of the season. As the season progressed, things went better for the Blazers. Above all Danny Lawson , who was the best scorer in the league with 61 goals, and the top scorer of the league André Lacroix , who scored 124 points, made it into the playoffs. Here the team failed in four games at the Cleveland Crusaders . The two home games only saw 3,600 spectators, about 600 less than the average for the regular season.

Brown and Cooper had lost interest in their team and sold it to Canadian Jim Pattison, who relocated it to Vancouver .