This was originally broadcast on Sunday March 6, 2011
Did you know that some of the current NHL teams had their franchises start in other cities?
The Phoenix Coyotes, started life as the Winnipeg Jets. Phoenix got the team beginning in the 1996-97 season. The Jets, by the way, entered the NHL from the defunct WHA league starting in the 1979-80
That was also the same season that the Quebec Nordiques entered the NHL. You know that team better today as the Colorado Avalanche— since the start of the 1995-96 season!
Colorado also previously had another NHL Team, the Colorado Rockies, that played there from the 1976-77 season to the 1981-82 season. The team had been previously known as the Kansas City Scouts…and when they moved from Denver for the start of the 1982-83 season they became the New Jersey Devils.
A team that had started during the NHL expansion season of 1967-68, the Oakland or California Golden Seals, eventually became the Cleveland Barons starting with the 1976-77 season. That team only lasted two seasons before they merged with the struggling Minnesota North Stars who then became the current day Dallas Stars starting in the 1992-93 season.
And of course, you cannot forget that the current franchise, the Carolina Hurricanes were previously the New England or Hartford Whalers, another team that came over to the NHL in 1979 from the WHA. The Whalers morphed into the Hurricanes at the start of the 1997-98 season!
And the Calgary Flames were the NHL’s Atlanta Flames until the end of the 1979-80 season.
Very interesting
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