Maryland Hockey Apparel

Five defunct Maryland hockey teams, from the Baltimore Clippers to the Skipjacks to the short-lived Chesapeake Icebreakers, on shirts, hoodies, hats, and jerseys you will not find anywhere else.

Pro hockey in Maryland goes back to 1932, and for most of that time the history of hockey in Maryland has been the history of hockey in Baltimore. The Clippers played twenty years at the Civic Center and had their own fight song. The Skipjacks sent Olaf Kolzig and Barry Trotz to the NHL. Every one of these teams is gone now. This is where they live on.

Skip to the history

Baltimore Bandits Baltimore Blades Baltimore Clippers Baltimore Skipjacks Baltimore is a Hockey Town Chesapeake Icebreakers

Maryland hockey history

The history of pro hockey in Maryland spans more than ninety years, since the first team started play in 1932. For the most part, the history of hockey in Maryland is the history of hockey in Baltimore, as almost all of the state's pro teams have played there.

It all starts with the Baltimore Orioles in 1932, but not the baseball kind: a hockey team of the same name that played out of Carlin's Iceland in the 1930s and 1940s. Carlin's Iceland was part of Carlin's Park, an amusement park in the city at the time. The Orioles played in the Eastern Hockey League, roughly the equivalent of a mid-level minor league today, and lasted until 1942 and America's entry into the Second World War.

Win, you Baltimore Clippers

After the war, hockey resumed at Carlin's Iceland, but this time it was the first iteration of the Baltimore Clippers. Those Clippers played until 1955, when the rink at Carlin's burned down and temporarily ended hockey in Baltimore. The original Clippers moved south and became the Charlotte Clippers.

The Baltimore Clippers who became a Baltimore institution started play in the AHL in 1962–63 as the first tenant of the brand-new Baltimore Civic Center, now CFG Bank Arena. These Clippers played at the Civic Center for two decades, through the 1980–81 season, in an orange-and-black sailor logo and color scheme. Even better, they are one of the few hockey teams we know of that had their own fight song.

While the Clippers never won an AHL title, they fielded some very good teams and made it all the way to the Calder Cup Finals in 1971–72. They also boast some legendary alumni: Eddie Giacomin, Gilles Villemure, Doug Harvey, Jacques Plante, and Jean Ratelle.

By the mid-1970s the hockey world was being shaken up by the World Hockey Association. The WHA expanded into a number of cities, the NHL expanded at the same time, and the market was badly saturated. The Clippers were in trouble, and they folded partway through the 1974–75 season because of financial difficulties.

That same day, the WHA's Michigan Stags announced they were moving to Baltimore. Renamed the Baltimore Blades, the franchise finished out the 1974–75 season at the Civic Center. The Blades brought minor league legend Bill Goldthorpe and former NHL goaltender Gerry Desjardins with them, but they did not last long, folding after only a half season in Baltimore.

That was not the end of the Clippers. The team was resurrected for 1975–76 after posting a performance bond to the AHL and selling 1,700 season tickets. The following year, 1976–77, the club dropped down to the Southern Hockey League, citing lower operating costs. The SHL had been born three years earlier when the southern teams of the Eastern Hockey League broke away to form a league closer to home, but by 1977 it was in a precarious state, and it folded in January, halfway through the season. The Clippers folded with it.

There was one last iteration of the storied Clippers name. New owners restarted the team in the revived EHL for 1979–80, in a green-and-yellow color scheme with a new logo tied to a Minnesota North Stars affiliation. The lower minors were in flux, and the Clippers spent two years in the EHL before that league disbanded too.

The Baltimore Skipjacks

As the EHL folded, the Clippers' owners looked for an alternative. From the ashes of the EHL came yet another short-lived minor league, the Atlantic Coast Hockey League, and there the owners rebranded the club as the Baltimore Skipjacks. In their first season, 1981–82, the Skipjacks wore green and white and brought in a big-name coach, IHL legend Moose Lallo. It was a rocky first year for the ACHL, with three teams folding; the Skipjacks finished third in a four-team league.

Knowing the ACHL was not going to last and needing an NHL affiliation to keep their big-league dreams alive, the Skipjacks' owners secured a deal with the Pittsburgh Penguins and made the jump to the AHL. Baltimore was a high-level hockey town again. The Skipjacks traded green and white for the Penguins' gold, black, and white and acquired almost a full roster when Pittsburgh closed its affiliation with the Erie Blades and sent those players to Baltimore.

The Skipjacks spent six seasons in Penguins colors and found real success, reaching the Calder Cup Finals in 1985. Bob Errey, Phil Bourque, and Marty McSorley all came through. Pittsburgh pulled out after 1986–87 and the Skipjacks soldiered on unaffiliated in 1987–88; with their source of players gone, the team went 13-58-9. They landed a Washington Capitals affiliation for 1988–89 and switched to the Caps' red, white, and blue. A great deal of Washington talent came through the ranks, including two future big-league coaches in Barry Trotz and Terry Murray, and on the ice Olaf Kolzig, Dmitri Khristich, Steve Konowalchuk, and future NHL coach Bruce Boudreau. The Skipjacks had five seasons with Washington, only two of them winning ones, and left for Portland, Maine, after 1992–93, citing financial losses. It was a minor league game of musical chairs: as the Maine Mariners moved from Portland to Providence, the Skipjacks jumped into the open market in Maine and became the Portland Pirates.

The Baltimore Bandits

As the years went by the Civic Center got older and hockey in Baltimore became a harder sell. The Baltimore Bandits were not a memorable team in the history of Maryland hockey, but we did get a superb raccoon logo out of them.

After the Skipjacks left and the musical chairs got sorted out, Baltimore went a winter without hockey for only the second time since 1962. In 1995–96 the Bandits joined the AHL as the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim's affiliate. Things got off to a rough start: the original owners sold the team during the first season, reportedly owing the league and the Ducks $600,000. The Bandits did have a good first year on the ice, beating the Hershey Bears in the first round of the playoffs.

In their second season the off-ice news was still bad, as the new owner pushed for funding for a new arena. The city had its own arena dreams and declined to help; neither plan ever happened. The Bandits were sold to a Cincinnati-based group at the end of that second season and relocated. Baltimore has been without top-level minor league hockey ever since.

Hockey goes to the horses

While most of Maryland's pro hockey history takes place in Baltimore, one more team set up outside the city limits. In 1997 the Chesapeake Icebreakers started play in Upper Marlboro. The Icebreakers answered two interesting questions with their choice of location: what happens if you put a team in the far suburbs, and what happens if you play in a horse arena?

Their home was the Show Place Arena, a multi-purpose building better known for horse shows than hockey, well outside the Beltway. The team drew reasonably well for its size, about 2,500 a game, but suffered from a lack of media coverage; it was probably too far from DC for reporters to make the trip, and certainly too far from Baltimore.

On the ice the Icebreakers did well. They were coached by former NHL enforcer Chris Nilan, had future NHL goaltender David Aebischer in net, won 68 games over two seasons, and in year two earned a first-round playoff bye and knocked off the Columbus Chill in the next round. After only two years in Upper Marlboro the franchise moved to Mississippi. As far as we know, the Show Place has not hosted pro hockey since.

Looking for something else? Browse every team A to Z or shop by state.