One of my all-time favorite hockey players to watch, Jaromir Jagr, has joined the Philadelphia Flyers for one more run at Lord Stanley’s Cup. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m happy to have another season to watch Jaromir.

Video Montage of Jagr:

I will never, ever forget the moves he put on the Blackhawks in the finals in 1992. The amazing goal tied the game and ultimately changed the course of the entire Series. Here is the goal:

Chime in and let us know your favorite Jagr moments. We have many, but the above stands out as the most special (even though, being from Chicago, that was a truly heartbreaking goal!!).

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Here is an article written by Larry Bornstein, originally published in the Denver Avalanche game program for a game versus the Cleveland Force on Thursday, February 26, 1981:

Denver Avalanche MISL - Mike Haas

Though he is a native of California’s San Francisco Bay area, when Mike Haas went to Germany last fall as a member of the Dallas Tornados of the North American Soccer League, he rediscovered his soccer roots in the land of his ancestors.

“I had played only one game for Dallas during the regular NASL season,” Mike remembers of his rather inactive summer of 1980. “But when we went to tour Germany and played some exhibition games, some of the other players couldn’t go, and some others got hurt during the tour, so I ended up playing quite a bit during the seven games on the schedule. We were 3-4, but I was able to see people I knew and could speak to in their native language. It was a great experience.”

Mike Haas - Dallas Tornado NASL

Dallas Tornado NASL - 1980

Both parents of the Denver Avalanche defender were born in Germany, so Mike grew up speaking their tongue, as well as English. Because of soccer, he has been able to visit Germany a couple times, even before his exhibition-game tour with the Dallas NASL entry last fall.

“I was there with a youth team back in 1973,” recalls the 6-1, 175pound defender. “I got a lot of support and help from my two uncles, Dieter Haas, my father’s brother, and Siegfried Bancer, my mother’s brother. They were great soccer experts and have really helped me develop my own game. They convinced me how great a game this was,”

Mike is the only member of the Avalanche who had played a lot of his previous soccer in Colorado. He was a standout at Colorado College for two years. In 1978 he was named the team’s Most Valuable Player and elected to the second all-star team of the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate League. In 1979, his senior season, he made the first team. Mike came to Colorado College after two years at Skyline Junior College in San Francisco, where he was an AIIAmerica selection.

How did he end up spending his last two years of college in Colorado Springs? “I went to a soccer camp in Seattle that was run by Dave Clements,” he recalls. “Horst Richardson, the Colorado College coach, was on the staff of the camp, and he convinced me to come to his school. It was a great decision for me to go there. I got my degree in business management and I played a lot of soccer.”

As a position-minded defender, Haas rarely moves the ball upfield, in either the indoor or outdoor version of the game, and isn’t going to dazzle the record-keepers with any wild outbursts of goal-scoring. But, says Clements, the Avalanche coach, “Mike’s very disciplined and very strong. He’s a very strong tackler.

That’s his chief strength and he’s done a fine job in that area for us.” Haas says the area of indoor soccer he has had to concentrate on most is playing the ball off the boards. “Mike Ditchfield and Peter Duerden (assistant coaches) have spent a lot of time with me hitting the ball off the boards and giving me time to learn the different angles,” Mike says. “It takes a real adjustment. The best on the team at playing the ball off the boards are ‘Chelo’ (Marcelo Curi) and Timmy Walters. They seem to know just where the ball is going to come off and get to that spot right away. I’m trying to improve in that area all the time.”

MISL Wichita Wings at Denver Avalanche

Mike explains that “marking” the opposing player is more important in indoor soccer than outdoors. “If the ball gets behind you outdoors and is heading for the corners, you don’t have to worry too much because it’ll go out of bounds,” he says. “But indoors there’s no out of bounds so you have to make sure the ball doesn’t get behind you. It takes
more concentration to play indoor soccer.”

Soccer has become the Haas family sport. Mike’s two younger brothers, Ron and Steve, are coming up behind him, with Ron now starring at Skyline Junior College and Steve having already attained some acclaim in the junior high school ranks. Both are midfielders. Mike enjoys spending time with his family, and had an excellent opportunity this past January 29. The Avalanche were playing the Fog in San Francisco, and it was just five days before Mike’s 23rd birthday. The Fog haven’t been drawing too well in their first year in the Major Indoor Soccer League. But this night the Cow Palace had a good and boisterous following – for Denver.

“Several members of my family were at the game,” Mike recalls, “and Howie Maierhofer and EI Bressie and their families were there, along with a bunch of other friends of theirs. So we had a real good turnout cheering for the Avalanche. It was a fun night.”

Mike Haas - Denver Avalanche

In February 1980, the Major Indoor Soccer League awarded a franchise to Ron Maierhofer, to be named the Denver Avalanche. The team’s first three players, all signed the same day were Tony Graham, Chris Cattaneo and Adrian Brooks. The team’s first draft pick Erhardt Kapp passed on the Avalanche and signed with the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League instead. The team’s first game, an exhibition match, took place on November 3, 1980, a 10-4 loss to the St. Louis Steamers. Coached by Dave Clements, the Avalanche finished the regular season out of playoff contention, but in 1982, they made the playoffs only to fall to the St. Louis Steamers in the first round. Clements was named the 1982 MISL Coach of the Year. The team entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1983. (source: Wikipedia)

More on the “original” Av’s in Denver in the days to come.

Denver Avalanche 1981-82 Team Photo - MISL

#13 Tim Walters - Denver Avalanche

If you have checked around our new website and found this blog, congratulations! We’d like to offer you a site-wide discount of 10% off any order, through the end of March.

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Our brand-new website at www.sportsretro.com is now live. While it is finally up and running, we are still working on a few adjustments to make sure everything is working properly.

Check out all the new features and have fun exploring. Please let us know what you think about the new site.

The Detroit Vipers were an International Hockey League team. The team was founded in 1994, and played at The Palace of Auburn Hills.

Beginning

The Vipers were originally the Salt Lake Golden Eagles. In 1994, the franchise was purchased by Palace Sports and Entertainment (owners of the Detroit Pistons and The Palace of Auburn Hills) and relocated for the 1994–95 season. A sponsorship deal with the Chrysler Corporation led to the naming of the team after their Dodge Viper. A similar deal was in place with another Palace Sports-owned team, the Detroit Neon of the Continental Indoor Soccer League, which would switch its sponsorship to GMC in its final year and rename the team the Detroit Safari after yet another vehicle, the Safari.

The team hired former Buffalo Sabres coach Rick Dudley as head coach. Their first season was during the NHL lockout, and this, combined with a liberal amount of free ticket vouchers distributed at local stores, helped the Vipers break IHL attendance records that season with nearly 17,000 per game on average. Led by 44 goals from Daniel Shank (never equaled through the franchise’s existence), the Vipers won their division that season, and gained some press by defeating a team of locked out NHL All-Stars in an exhibition game. The 1995–96 season would see the notable signing of Washington Capitals star Peter Bondra for a brief time, while he was locked in a holdout with Washington management, as well as the departure of Rick Dudley to take the general manager’s position with the Ottawa Senators, replaced by assistant coach Steve Ludzik for the final 32 games. The Vipers would finish the season in second place in the Central Division and led the league in attendance again.

The Turner Cup Finals

1996–97 saw the arrival of Russian phenom Sergei Samsonov and IHL All-Star Stan Drulia to the Vipers. Drulia led the team in scoring and Samsonov would win Rookie of the Year honors as the Vipers won another division title. Detroit would advance to their first Turner Cup Final, against the Long Beach Ice Dogs. Led by Samsonov and Peter Ciavaglia, the Vipers won the series four games to two for their first Turner Cup. Samsonov would be a high first round draft pick of the Boston Bruins, but the slack was picked up in 1997–98 by 40 goals from Dan Kesa as the Vipers won their third division title in four years. They would advance to the Turner Cup Finals against the Chicago Wolves, but after going up three games to two, would only be able to score one goal in the final two games and lost four games to three. 1997–98 also saw a one shift comeback from Gordie Howe, making him the only person to play hockey in six different decades as a professional.

Demise

The 1998–99 season saw another division title for the Vipers, becoming the first team in professional hockey to have 100 points in the standings in each of their first five years. However, they were defeated in the Eastern Conference Finals by the Orlando Solar Bears in seven games, after a questionable call by referee Jerry Paytmon. In 1999, Palace Sports and Entertainment bought the Tampa Bay Lightning, and made the Detroit Vipers their farm club. Their first move was to move Steve Ludzik’s coaching position from Detroit to Tampa, replacing him with Paulin Bordeleau. As the Lightning struggled, the transfer of talent from the farm club to the parent club throughout the season sapped the team of the strength and stability that it had experienced through the first five years of its existence, and the team finished in last place in their division. The Vipers’ woes were nothing, however, compared to the worsening health of the IHL, which had overexpanded itself throughout the decade and was paying the price in red ink. The 2000–01 season saw the Vipers in last place in the league in standings and attendance, and the impending demise of the IHL combined with the plummeting attendance led Palace Sports to find a new affiliate for the Lightning. On June 4, 2001, both the International Hockey League and the Detroit Vipers ceased operations.

via DETROITVIPERS.NET Detroit Vipers IHL Hockey Vintage Retro Apparel T-shirts Jackets Sweatshirts Jersey Shirts.

The IHL was formed in December 1945 and initially consisted of four cross-border teams in Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. In 1947, a team from Toledo, Ohio joined the league, and the following year the IHL expanded significantly, with teams in four additional U.S. cities. The expansion did not take hold, and for 1949–50, the league was back down to teams in Detroit and Windsor as well as two nearby Canadian cities, Sarnia, Ontario and Chatham, Ontario. Windsor dropped out in 1950, and expansion into the U.S. began again, with Toledo rejoining the league and new teams in Grand Rapids, Michigan (1950), Troy, Ohio, (1951), Cincinnati (1952), Fort Wayne, Indiana (1952), and Milwaukee (1952). At the same time, the last Canadian team left the league in 1952, when the Chatham Maroons pulled out. Three new U.S. cities were added in 1953. The league would expand and shrink between five and nine teams through the 1950s, with another major expansion in 1959. In the 1962–63 season, the IHL played an interlocking schedule with the NHL-owned Eastern Professional Hockey League, which itself folded in 1963. After 11 seasons as a strictly U.S.-based league, the IHL admitted two Canadian teams in 1963, with the Windsor Bulldogs and the return of the Chatham Maroons. Both teams dropped out after one season, however, and the league would not have a Canadian team again until 1996.

via International Hockey League (1945–2001) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

More to come about the IHL…

Blue Jackets at Penguins – 02/08/2011 – NHL.com – Recap

Sure, the Pens are suffering with injuries, but it was still good to see the Jackets get a nice road win against a typically tough opponent.

While still hopeful for a playoff spot, the Jackets have a ways to go and plenty of work to do.

Chime in…who are your favorite NHL teams and why?

Welcome to the all-new Sports Retro Blog! We’ll be posting various articles of information here including opinions and viewpoints on various sports topics, team histories via Wikipedia and other public domain sources, and more. Enjoy!