Pennsylvania Hockey Apparel

Seventeen defunct Pennsylvania hockey teams, one of them fictional, plus the old Philadelphia Arena, on shirts, hoodies, hats, and jerseys you will not find anywhere else.

Pennsylvania has had pro hockey for a hundred years, most of it below the NHL and a lot of it in Philadelphia's old Arena on Market Street, Pittsburgh's Duquesne Garden, and a war memorial in Johnstown that a Hollywood crew made famous. The Quakers were the worst team in NHL history, the Hornets won three Calder Cups, and the Jets were the real Charlestown Chiefs. Every one of these teams is gone now. This is where they live on.

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Charlestown Chiefs Erie Blades Erie Panthers Johnstown Blue Birds Johnstown Jets Philadelphia Arena Philadelphia Arrows Philadelphia Blazers Philadelphia Bulldogs Philadelphia Falcons Philadelphia Firebirds Philadelphia Quakers Philadelphia Ramblers Philadelphia Rockets Pittsburgh Hornets Pittsburgh Phantoms Pittsburgh Shamrocks Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets

Pennsylvania hockey history

Philadelphia and the Arena. The Philadelphia Arena opened on Market Street in 1920 and was the city's hockey building for the next half century. The Philadelphia Arrows played there in the Canadian-American Hockey League from 1927, and in 1935 the franchise became the Philadelphia Ramblers, the New York Rangers' farm club in the league that became the AHL. The Ramblers were renamed the Philadelphia Rockets in 1941, and the postwar Rockets of 1946–47 set a mark that still stands: five wins in sixty-four games, the worst season in AHL history. In between, the Philadelphia Falcons kept the Arena busy in the Eastern Hockey League during the war years, and a second Ramblers team played the EHL there from 1955 into the 1960s. The Philadelphia Quakers were the city's first NHL team, the relocated Pittsburgh Pirates, and their one season in 1930–31 produced four wins in forty-four games, a record for futility the NHL has never matched.

The Blazers and the Firebirds. The Philadelphia Blazers of the World Hockey Association were the Miami Screaming Eagles franchise that never played, moved north before the 1972–73 season with Bernie Parent already under contract. They added Derek Sanderson at what was briefly the largest contract in team sports, then had to cancel opening night at the Civic Center because the ice cracked under the Zamboni; Sanderson was sent out to apologize to the crowd, who threw the souvenir pucks back at him. One season, then Vancouver. The Philadelphia Firebirds came next, an NAHL team from 1974 that won the Lockhart Cup in 1976 and then played two AHL seasons before folding in 1979. The Philadelphia Bulldogs were Roller Hockey International's team at the Spectrum in the mid-1990s.

Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets were the amateur champions of the United States in the mid-1920s before their roster became the NHL's Pittsburgh Pirates, and the name came back for an Eastern League team at Duquesne Garden in the 1930s. The Pittsburgh Shamrocks had one season, 1935–36, in the original International Hockey League. The Pittsburgh Hornets were the ones who lasted: a Duquesne Garden fixture in the AHL from 1936 until the building was torn down in 1956, then revived at the Civic Arena from 1961 to 1967, with three Calder Cups along the way, the last of them in their final season, just before the Penguins arrived. The Pittsburgh Phantoms played one summer of Roller Hockey International at the Civic Arena in 1994.

Johnstown. The Johnstown Blue Birds were the city's first pro team, an Eastern League club from the early 1940s. The Johnstown Jets followed in 1950, played twenty-three seasons in the EHL and then the North American Hockey League at the Cambria County War Memorial, and in 1975 won the NAHL championship with a roster that included the Carlson brothers. That team, that building, and that season became Slap Shot, filmed in Johnstown in 1976, which is why the Charlestown Chiefs, a team that never existed, are on this page. The real thing folded in 1977.

Erie. The Erie Blades came out of the same NAHL years, won back-to-back championships at the end of the 1970s in the leagues that succeeded it, and reached the AHL in 1981 as the Penguins' affiliate before the franchise was moved to Baltimore. The Erie Panthers were the ECHL's team at the Erie Civic Center from 1988 to 1996, and when they left it was to become the Baton Rouge Kingfish.

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