Denied In Florida

It may be hard to believe, but Sunrise, Florida may never have had the Florida Panthers had an ownership group convinced the AHL that their community was the right place for an AHL affiliate. In the league's history, there have only been two seasons where they've had a team in Florida, so there isn't a long history of AHL hockey anywhere in the state. However, an ownership group with an affiliation possibility approached the league for a team to potentially be put in Dania, Florida, just 25 miles southeast of Sunrise, the eventual expansion home of the NHL's Florida Panthers.

Historically, the only time that the AHL has called Florida home was 1972-74 when the Jacksonville Barons played there. Nick Mileti, owner of the WHA's Cleveland Barons, decided to move the AHL team of the same name that he owned to a new city after determining that Cleveland could only support one hockey team.

Mileti originally wanted to fold the AHL team, but he was stopped by the development agreement he had with the Minnesota North Stars. After landing on Lewiston, Maine as the potential new home for the Barons, the AHL stopped in at the urging of the NHL and voted this relocation down. Mileti turned to Jacksonville, and he convinced the AHL to vote for this relocation after he promise to pay for the costs of the teams that travelled to Jacksonville.

In the summer of 1971, though, Recreation Inc. approached the AHL with the desire to own an AHL franchise after coming to some sort of agreement to be the affiliate of the Buffalo Sabres who were founded in 1970. There was no mention if the team would be based in Dania, Florida per se, but one has to imagine that the group would want its AHL team near to where its ownership lives and does business. Dania is right near Miami and Fort Lauderdale, so either of those cities could have been the landing spot for this team, but it was never clear as to where exactly this team would play.

By June 11, 1971, the AHL had reviewed the application and decided that they weren't awarding an expansion franchise to that group for the following season. It might have been for the best because there were a pile of changes coming down the pipe that the AHL needed to manage including adding three expansion teams that had already been approved and two team relocations that saw the AHL reduced to one Canadian team. Having an eleventh team so far away from the ten teams that existed would have been difficult at best.

Of the changes that the AHL went through that summer, they added the Boston Braves, the Cincinnati Swords, and the Tidewater Wings (Norfolk, Virginia) as expansion teams while the Quebec Aces moved to Richmond, Virginia to become the Richmond Robins, and the Montreal Voyageurs moved east to Halifax where they became the Halifax Voyageurs. Needless to say, five teams in new cities would be a huge task for any league to coordinate, but the AHL somehow made it happen for the 1971-72 season.

Would we have seen a "Florida Panthers" in the AHL if the expansion bid had been successful? It's hard to say considering that the WHA tried to establish the Miami Screaming Eagles in 1972, so maybe we'd be talking about the AHL Miami Screaming Eagles instead. I can't say if Herb Martin, owner of the WHA franchise, was involved in the Recreation Inc. ownership group, but I do know that there was an expansion proposal that looked to establish an AHL likely in Florida!

The Sunrise Scimitars? That could have been the AHL affiliate of the Buffalo Sabres in 1971 had expansion occurred!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!