Illinois Hockey Apparel

Eight defunct Illinois teams, from the World Hockey Association to a resort rink on the Wisconsin line, on shirts, hoodies, hats, and drinkware.

Illinois hockey usually gets told as one story, and it wears a Blackhawks sweater. The rest of it is harder to find: a second Chicago club that shared the Black Hawks' first winter, a WHA team that played for a championship in a suburban community rink, a senior club run out of a resort, a team in Peoria called the Prancers, and the Bloomington Blaze. We make apparel for those teams, in many cases the only apparel that exists for them anywhere.

We're a family-run small business bringing back the designs and the histories of long-lost hockey teams from Illinois and across the US and Canada.

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Illinois Teams

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Hockey Teams in Illinois

The Chicago Black Hawks joined the NHL in 1926 and have been the main event in Illinois hockey ever since. They were never the only team in the state, though. For most of a century, other clubs have tried their luck in Chicago and well beyond it, and most of them are gone.

Chicago in the 1920s: the Americans

The Black Hawks had company in their very first winter. The Chicago Cardinals of the American Hockey Association also started play in 1926–27, which gave the city two professional teams before it had finished getting used to one. In March 1927 the Cardinals were renamed the Chicago Americans, and they did not come back for a second season.

The AHA tried Chicago again with the Shamrocks, who played from 1930 to 1932. That didn't last either.

The Cougars and the WHA

The serious challenge came in 1972, when the World Hockey Association put the Chicago Cougars in the International Amphitheatre on the South Side. The Cougars struggled in their first year, then signed Pat Stapleton and Ralph Backstrom away from the Black Hawks and went on a run to the 1974 AVCO World Trophy final against Gordie Howe and the Houston Aeros.

By the time they got there, the Amphitheatre had been booked for something else. The Cougars played their home games in the final at the Randhurst Twin Ice Arena in suburban Mount Prospect, a community rink, and Houston swept the series.

Stapleton, Backstrom and goaltender Dave Dryden bought the team themselves for the 1974–75 season. The Cougars folded when it ended, and Chicago has not had a second major league team since.

The Cougars were not alone in those years, either. The Chicago Warriors played in the United States Hockey League from 1972 to 1975, back when the USHL was a senior league and not yet the junior circuit it later became.

Rockton: the Wagon Wheel Cardinals

The most unlikely home rink on this page belonged to a resort. The Wagon Wheel, in Rockton near the Wisconsin line, was a popular vacation spot that counted two ice rinks among its amenities, and from 1958 it was home to the Wagon Wheel Cardinals of the Illinois Ice Hockey League, a senior amateur league made up mostly of Chicago clubs.

The Cardinals won the league title in 1958–59, their first season, and took the regular season title in each of their first four. They kept putting up winning records until the team disbanded in 1971.

Peoria: the Prancers

Peoria joined the International Hockey League in 1982 with an expansion team, a New York Rangers farm club playing in the brand-new Peoria Civic Center. It was called the Peoria Prancers, a name no hockey team has reached for since.

The Prancers lasted two losing seasons. In 1984 the club was renamed the Rivermen, and that name is still on the ice in Peoria today.

Bloomington: the Blaze

The Bloomington Blaze played two seasons in the Central Hockey League, from 2011 to 2013, at what was then the U.S. Cellular Coliseum.

Chicago on wheels: the Cheetahs and the Bluesmen

Roller Hockey International brought summer hockey to arenas across North America in the 1990s, and Chicago had two goes at it. The Chicago Cheetahs played in 1994 and 1995. The Chicago Bluesmen followed in 1999, which turned out to be the league's last season.

Illinois still has plenty of hockey beyond the Blackhawks. The Chicago Wolves, the Rockford IceHogs and the Peoria Rivermen are all still playing. The eight teams on this page are not, and that's the part worth wearing.

Eight Illinois teams that don't skate anymore.

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