Where Are They Now? - Danny Sullivan, Goalie, Roanoke Valley Rebels

Netminder Danny Sullivan backstopped the Roanoke Valley Rebels to the EHL Playoff Finals in 1972-73. The photo to the right shows Sullivan with the Philadelphia Fireirds of the NAHL. Here's an article from the December 8, Kimberley (BC) Daily Bulletin on Sullivan's return home.

Dan Sully Sullivan returns to Kimberley

Dan Sully Sullivan returns to Kimberley

Carolyn Grant photo

Dan Sullivan gives Bob Misuraca a trim.

December 8, 2010

Anthony Dransfeld

There is a new barber in Kimberley. Actually, Dan Sullivan, who recently opened his barber shop next to the Grub Stake Diner (in the Royal Bank Plaza), has been a barber in Nelson for 10 years.

Sully was born and raised here in Kimberley and left to pursue a professional hockey career as a goal tender for the Roanoke Rebels in the Eastern Hockey League. After stops in Charlotte, North Carolina, Cincinnati and Philadelphia, Dan ended his career in Nelson for the Maple Leafs (WIHL) after the 1978 season.

A quick Bio: Growing up here in Kimberley, Sully was a minor hockey phenom as a forward. At 15, Danny put the pads on for the first time, backstopping the Kimberley Juveniles to the BC Championship when they defeated Summerland in the final. Kimberley was coached by Gerry Barre and Bob McDonald.

Sully played senior hockey in Cranbrook for the Royals and the Spokane Jets before turning pro in 1972.

He became a certified golf instructor under Moe Norman, teaching the method "natural golf" in Spokane on weekends while barbering 5 days a week in Nelson.

Kimberley has been down to 1 barbershop since Bill Dubé moved his shop to Summerland 8 years ago. Cranbrook has 2 barbershops and now Kimberley balances things a bit with the addition of Sully's Barber Shop.

Dan's wife Sandra, is a Kimberley girl and is enjoying being back in the area. Their 13 years old granddaughter Antonia is quite the skiing enthusiast and likes the fact that her great grandmother Kay Sullivan lives here in Kimberley. I remember Danny learned to ski on a $20.00 pair of Thunderbirds, when season ski passes were $30. How times have changed! On a personal note, I roomed with Sully in 1966 when he was playing Junior Hockey for the Burnaby Lakers.

36 Years Ago Today - The EHL Dissolves into the NAHL and SHL

On April 12, 1973 the Syracuse Blazers won the EHL championship. As Ray Adduono skated around the rink with the Walker Trophy, it broke into three pieces. This was symbolic of what was about to happen to the EHL, splitting into three pieces (the NAHL, the SHL and the others) on May 1, 1973 at the last ever league meeting. Here's the AP Wire version of the story...

NEW YORK (AP) - The Eastern Hockey League, at its annual meeting in New York Tuesday, announced the formal dissolution of the EHL and the creation of two seperate leagues, one based in the north and the other operating out of the south, to fill the void.
The northern league, titled the North American Hockey League, plans to begin play this fall with a minimum of six teams. Charter members include the Cape Cod Cubs, Mohawk Valley Comets, Johnstown, Pa. Jets and the Binghamton, N.Y. Dusters. At least two additional NAHL entries are expected to be named shortly, with franchises from Rhode Island and Lewiston, Me. having the inside track. A Long Island entry is also a possibility. Cape Cod, Mohawk Valley and Johnstown were members of the now disbanded EHL. The NAHL, which is scheduled to begin a 74-game regular season Oct. 12, chose Jack Newkirk of Cape Cod as temporary chairman and Ed Stanley of Mohawk Valley as treasurer.
Earlier Tuesday, the Southern Hockey League was formed, with franchises granted to Charlotte, N.C., Greensboro, N.C., Winston-Salem, N.C., Roanoke Valley, Va. and St. Petersburg, Fla.

Binghamton and Lewiston had previously applied for EHL membership, and both were expected to be in the league for 1973-74.

It's interesting that Ed Stanley, who was the Clinton Arena manager who got Clinton into the league in 1954 became treasurer of the new NAHL. In 1973, Clinton had just been sold to a group of locals in a "Save the Comets" kind of deal. The new ownership, splitting the team between Clinton and Utica, renamed the team the Mohawk Valley Comets. Stanley was not one of the owners.

Of the teams not mentioned...
Syracuse Blazers owner Bill Charles had been angling all season to get into the AHL. They ended up back in the NAHL.
The Jersey Devils are a blog in themselves of things going wrong for them at that time. They were hoping for a northern division in the SHL or a southern division in the NAHL, neither of which happened. They were given two weeks to make a decision which league to join. In spite of the Philadelphia Blazers moving to Vancouver within that timeframe, the Devils never made it to the next season.
The Long Island Ducks, also affected by a local WHA franchise, had tried to fold at the end of the 1973 regular season - and even told the Devils to take their spot in the playoffs, before the league intervened and made the Ducks play. On May 24, 1973, the Long Island Cougars, under different ownership and as a farm team of the WHA Chicago Cougars, were accepted into the NAHL.
Rhode Island never made it to the gate.

In the south, Baltimore, Alabama were listed as possibilities for other first year franchises, but neither developed. The Macon Whoopees were added as the sixth SHL franchise that summer.

Suncoast Suns/ Jacksonvile Rockets articles online

I was just thinking last week that I needed a southern division newspaper source to help balance my perspective as I unearth the Eastern Hockey League. In my hobby as a hockey paleontologist I have a few sources for EHL articles to sift through...
* The NY Times, I can search online through my library. You can get the headlines and possibly first paragraph at...http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?srchst=p
* The Worcester Public Library has the Worcester Telegram for the 1954-55 season on microfilm. I spent a day getting all of the Worcester Warriors articles for that year. As I was leaving I realized they also have the evening paper, so a return visit is in order.
* The Washington Times, I can see online at http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/advancedsearch.html the headlines and maybe a brief blurb of the article. Then I can go up to Dartmouth library and find the articles on microfilm. This is good source for the 1950s when the Lions and Presidents played there.
* For a very reasonable fee http://NewspaperArchive.com has lots of papers from around the country, including the Syracuse papers, which are my best source at home. The Oneonta Star, Chester Times and Bridgeport CT papers have somewhat regular articles on the Comets, Ramblers and Blades respectively. There's also AP and UPI stories and scores in other papers.
* On my visits to Jersey, I check out the Camden Courier Post and Woodbury Times on microfilm for Devils articles.

The problem with most of these sources, along with mostly being northern papers, is that there is no way for you to see the articles.

So it was with great joy this morning that I discovered that the St. Petersburg Times and Evening Independent from the EHL era are searchable and viewable free of charge on-line via:

http://news.google.com/archivesearch
(The advanced search, and using timeline will help.)

Those papers covered the Suncoast Suns and prior to that the Jacksonville Rockets / Florida Rockets who also played some games at the Bayfront Center in St. Pete. They actually had some pretty good coverage. They usually have a picture with most articles, though some are blurred beyond recognition.

...and the best part is that for once, everyone can see the articles. So, especially if you are a fan of the Charlotte Checkers, Greensboro Generals, Nashville Dixie Flyers, Salem Rebels / Roanoke Valley Rebels, Knoxville Knights or particularly the Jacksonville Rockets or Suncoast Suns, enjoy!