EHL Franchise History

1954 is the first year that the old Eastern Amateur Hockey League (EAHL) formed in 1933 became known as simply the Eastern Hockey League (EHL), which is the major reason I use that as the starting year for TheEHL.com. (Whereas the EHL 1959-60 yearbook refers to that year as the 25th anniversary of the EHL.) The EAHL shut down for the 1953-54 season, and when it reformed as the EHL, such standard EAHL teams as the Boston Olympics and the Atlantic City Seagulls, and the MSG based New York Rovers were no longer in the league. 1954-55 was the first EHL season of the Clinton Comets and New Haven Blades. The following year, Worcester dropped out and the "modern day" EHL footprint really started with the re-admitance of the Johnstown Jets back from two years in the IHL, the addition of the Philadelphia Ramblers, and Baltimore moving to Charlotte after their arena burned down.

Within that 20 year period, the EHL was a relatively stable league as minor leagues go. Most of the franchise movement was in the first two years and the last two years. There were 17 total "new" franchises, of which two only lasted 1 year and both were experiments of sorts. The 1954-55 Worcester Warriors were allegedly the old Boston Olympics franchise. However, they were also an attempt to see how a team of local US amateurs would fare up against teams of mostly Canadians. Their main purpose was to fill a spot in the league, so that the other teams could fill out their schedules for that year. The 1964-65 NY Rovers were created as a test of having a development team at MSG for the Rangers. In the end, the development was deemed a success, but the cost of running the franchise was deemed not.

Below is a list of "new" franchises, and where they moved to. It's possible that all of these moves were not exact franchise shifts. In the case of the Jersey Larks moving to Knoxville, I've seen it written as the Jersey franchise being discontinued and at the same time Knoxville starting, and I've seen it written as a straight franchise shift. Since the GM, Ray Miron, and most of the players remained the same (even back from the Washington Presidents), I list that as all one franchise.

On the other hand, the Suncoast Suns appeared at the same time the Nashville Dixie Flyers disbanded. They were clearly a new franchise, though at least in their first exhibition game wore the old Nashville pants. They also received a lot of Nashville players, but this was after Greensboro had purchased all the Nashville players and then sold the players they didn't want from the combined Nashville/Greensboro rosters to Suncoast.

Simple name changes were the Charlotte Clippers becoming the Checkers, the Washington Lions becoming the Presidents, and the NY Rovers becoming the Long Island Ducks. If like me you saw the Charlotte Clippers being as silly as the Hartford Whalers - nautical names for land based cities - know that there was actually a minor league football Charlotte Clippers that played all through the 40s.

The Salem Rebels became Roanoke Valley when they started splitting their home games at the Roanoke Civic Center. Likewise, the Jacksonville Rockets became the Florida Rockets for several seasons, playing part of their home schedules in West Palm Beach and St. Petersburg. They later reverted back to just Jacksonville.

No team played a full schedule of games every season in the same city. Clinton played a partial season in 1954-55, while also playing in the Eastern Ontario League that year. Johnstown was in the IHL for the 1954-55 season. New Haven was forced out of town to Springfield, MA for the 1972-73 season, but the New England Blades folded by Thanksgiving. The Baltimore/Charlotte franchise played full schedules every year, but were not in the same location.

The most franchises in any year was 12, in both 1967-68 and 1972-73.

1954-55
Baltimore Clippers (1954-55) -> Charlotte Clippers (1956-60)-> Charlotte Checkers (1960-73)
Clinton Comets (1954-73)
New Haven Blades (1954-1972) -> New England Blades (1972)
Washington Lions -> Washington Presidents (1957-60)-> Jersey Larks (1960-61)-> Knoxville Knights (1961-68)
Worcester Warriors (1954-55)

1955-56
Johnstown Jets (1955-73)
Philadelphia Ramblers (1955-64) -> Jersey Devils (1964-73)

1959-60
Greensboro Generals (1959-73)
New York Rovers/Long Island Ducks (1959-61/1961-73)

1962-63
Nashville Dixie Flyers (1962-71)

1964-65
New York Rovers (1964-65)
Jacksonville Rockets/Florida Rockets (1964-71)

1967-68
Syracuse Blazers (1967-1973)
Salem Rebels/Roanoke Valley Rebels (1967-73)

1971-72
Suncoast Suns (1971-73)

1972-73
Rhode Island Eagles (1972-73)
Cape Cod Cubs (1972-73)

Butch Songin, Boston Patriots Quarterback Played in the first AFL Game and for the Eastern Hockey League Worcester Warriors

While looking for pictures of EHL players, I found this shot of Ed "Butch" Songin (hand raised to coach Lou Saban of the Boston Patriots) of the 1954-55 Worcester Warriors. It's from this article in the Boston Globe about Saban's passing.

Songin appears to be the only player to have played in the AFL/NFL and also the EHL. He played in the CFL, also - waiting until his season ended with the Hamilton Tiger Cats before signing with the EHL Warriors in 1954.

Songin is mentioned in this article by Evan Weiner about players who played both hockey and football for nhl.com Hockey Wasn't Berry's Only Game .

The Warriors were a team made up of American amateurs as a bit of an experiment to see how they would fare against the other Canadian-filled teams. The Warriors also enabled the EAHL to reform after a year off into the EHL, merely by icing a team. The Hudson Valley Bears of the EPHL performed a similar function this year, with similar results - the results being few wins, few fans and often getting shellacked.

The original EHL schedule had Worcester playing every Tuesday at home, though many of these were later cancelled. Road games, except for nearby New Haven were usually played on weekends so the players could make the games. Bill Ballou gives a good account in his March 29, 2007 Worcester Telegram article: Short-lived Warriors Had Fun.

Like a few of the purely amateur Warriors, who needed day jobs, Butch Songin appears to have only played home games and one at New Haven. Aside from the CFL, he also missed a game for a snowstorm, a game that the league cancelled due to rescheduling, and another game where he played for the the "Boston Collegians" on January 2, 1955.

Here's a recap of Songin's lone EHL season as quoted from Worceter Telegram articles. The dates are the date of the newspaper, not the games.

Worcester Telegram, December 7, 1954

Ed (Butch) Songin, the ex-Boston College football and hockey star, has informed the Worcester Warriors that he will definitely be on hand. Songin signed last week has been resting up after a starring season with the Hamilton Tiger Cats of the Canadian Football League

The Warriors won their first game (1-6) beating league-leading Clinton 6-5, however Songin did not play and no reason was given in the paper.

Worcester Telegram, December 14, 1954

Ed (Butch) Songin, the ex-Boston College star, and more recently a performer in the Canadian grid league, will make his first appearance tonight and will team with (Rod) O'Connor on defense.

Worcester Telegram,December 15, 1954

Songin, making his debut with the Worcesters as a result of little skating or practice and help the starring (Dusty) Burke (from Athol, MA) and the improved O'Connor in the games to come.

Songin had two assists in his first game, a 6-5 home win over the New Haven Blades:

O'Grady (Duffy, Songin) 17:09 1st - Frank O'Grady's long shot from the left, after a pretty combination play in which Ed (Butch) Songin, the ex-B.C. star, and Duffy helped, made it 3-2 (New Haven) just before the period closed.

Duffy (Cahoon, Songin) 16:45 2d - Duffy locked it up again at 4-4 on a pass from Songin.

Worcester Telegram, December 21, 1954

Songin, the burly ex-B.C. footballer, who made his debut with the Warriors last Tuesday, will be back to the team with Burke at the points. Songin, busy playing football with Hamilton in the Canadian Football League, wasn't in his best shape last week. But he has been skating daily since and expects to be in full stride from here in.

There was a huge east coast snowstorm and the Washington Lions, along with the individual Warriors players barely made it to the arena by game time. Songin didn't make it to the game. The Warriors (3-6) won their third game 5-3 in front of 304 fans.

December 29, 1954
Songin played in a 7-5 home loss to the arch-rival New Haven Blades before a sellout crowd of 1014 at Worcester Arena. Songin didn't make the box score or any mention in the article.

The following night at New Haven, possibly Songin's only road game, was a 10-2 loss to the Blades. Songin picked up an assist for 3 points in 3 games.
Jordan (Sennott, Songin) 9:12 3rd

January 2 & 3, 1955
The Warriors lost 7-1 vs. the Washington Lions at Uline Arena, and 10-4 vs. the Baltimore Clippers at Carlins Iceland. Songin did not make the trip. In fact, there is an article next to the Baltimore game article which shows Butch Songin and Jimmy Duffy stayed home and each scored for something called the Boston Collegians - not to be confused with Boston College which both had played for in the late 40s - beating St. Francis Xavier from Nova Scotia at Boston Arena in front of 2648.

Worcester Telegram, January 5, 1955
Songin had two goals, but the New Haven Blades beat the Warriors 5-3 on 2 late 3rd period goals.

Songin (Ceglarski, Burke) 18:58 2d- The Warriors however after the game stopped for a few minutes because of a pair of fights between Dick Hamm and Don Perry and Rod O'Connor and Al Fontana, broke the ice as Songin drove the puck past goalie Jack Geutens (Also spelled Geuten and Geutin in the box score) at 18:50. Both clubs were playing with three men on the ice at the time.

Len Ceglarski, who assisted is better known today as the highly successful hockey coach at Clarkson and Boston College. This may have been his only point as a pro (well, amateur) , but that's another post.

Songin (Sennott) 12:32 3rd - Worcester, however, trailing 3-1 seconds after the third period opened, dispalyed its best hockey of the game and tied the game at 12:32 on Butch Songin's second goal.

January 16, 1955
Songin (nor partner Burke) did not play in New Haven, an 8-1 Blades rout.

January 19, 1955
Songin (nor partner Burke) did not play in exhibition game against the US National team, which included Worcester Warriors Johnny Titus, Walter Greeley and Frank O'Grady.

A road trip followed, which I can only assume Songin did not make.

February 7, 1955
Two Songins in the lineup, H & W, neither one Butch. From hockeydb.com we can derive that these were probably Walter (confirmed in a later article) and Harold, who I read somewhere were Butch's brothers. Harold got an assist and Walter got a high sticking minor.

February 13, 1955
A Songin, presumably Walter, was listed as a forward for the Warriors in a 14-2 loss at Clinton according to the Utica Observer.

February 23, 1955
Walter was a no show in spite being tabbed as on the top line in the previous day's paper. No Songins played as the New Haven Blades routed the Warriors 20-3 in the Warriors final game of the year and ever in the EHL. The Washingtoin Lions protested this game. An article in the February 26, 1955 Washington Post reads...

Thanks to a decision by league president Tom Lockhart, acting on a protest by Washington general manager Jack Riley, the Lions received a boost in their bid for second (place). Lockhart ruled that New Haven's 20-3 victory over Worcester Monday was an unofficial game as that game along with Worcester's final matches with Washington and Baltimore had previously been cancelled.

So the final EHL tally for Butch Songin appears to be:
4 games, 2 goals, 3 assists, 5 points, no PIMs. 1 win 3 losses.

Still that's enough to be the only known player to have played in the EHL and the AFL/NFL, though not the only EHLer to have played professional football...

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!