Cleveland Barons, lost in the Barrens

[yave1964]

The Cleveland Barons simply were the greatest organization in AHL history, shining from 1937 til 1973, They appeared in 14 Calder cup finals, winning a league record 9 of them, a record that to this day still hasnt been broken.

Sadly, this is not their story.

This is the story of a team from California that tried for nine years to prove hockey could draw even with a bad team in Northern California, tried with worse and worse teams before new owner Melvin Swig finally gave up and moved the team to his hometown of Cleveland, returning in glory. Sort of.

Actually he didnt quite make it to cleveland, the Barons played at the state of the art Richfield Coliseum, an arena built for the WHA Crusaders and NBA Cavaliers. Problem was, the stadium, rather than being downtown (where the people are) it was built 30 miles out of town (where the people are not). The plan was to draw from not only cleveland but the Akron canton area as well, and it worked, people from all three cities stayed away in equal numbers.
The biggest problem with the location was 30 minutes, 30 miles seemed like a reasonable plan, but rush hour in Cleveland is hell, and everyone trying to commute out of town at the same bumper to bumper time discouraged fans. So did poor play, but if they had been downtown, who knows, they might still be there. Instead, they earned the nickname the Cleveland Barrens.

They stayed in town for two seasons, the 1976-77 season and 1977-78. Playing in a beautiful arena, the largest capacity in the NHL at over 18,000 they only broke the ten thousand fan barrier ten times in the first season. Swig found himself in deep financial trouble, started missing payrolls, was bailed out by the league with a loan to finish the season then sold the team to George and Gordon Gund. The first season they finished with 63 points and the new owners promised that would change.
They were right, they next year they only had 57 points.
Actually, that is not entirely fair. The Gunds tried, traded for every veteran they could get their hands on, playing 33 players in all, They tried, but traded for Jean Potvin, not Denis. At one point they had the tail end of J.P. Parises career, instead of picking up his son zach (to be fair Zach was not born for another six years).They had one of the coolest nicknames in hockey history, 'the robber Baron" in Gil Meloche but after a combined 35-51-14 record over two years he needed to go into the witness protection program.
Anyway, the Gunds tried, the team got worse, they tried to purchase the coliseum to get out a horrible lease and when that failed, the league allowed the Barons and North stars to merge in Minnesota, ending NHL hockey in Cleveland (Or Richfield, you get the point). The Barons are the last pro sport team to completely cease operations, other cities have lost their teams to other cities, the Barons just no longer were. I think they got lost in the barrens.

Anyway, the best all time players for the Cleveland Barons...

LEFT WING BOB MURDOCH

Part of the 3M line, averaged 19 goals and 42 points in two seasons. Went on to play only one more season, with the Blues and was out of the game at the age of 25.

CENTER DENNIS MARUK

156 games, 149 points on a bad team. Of course, Maruk could always score and always seemed to be on bad teams, missing the playoffs his first seven seasons before becoming a 2nd line center for the North stars. Overall, this scrappy little guy played 888 games with 878 points with his best individual season with washington in 1981-82, with 60 goals, 136 points and 128 penalty minutes.

RIGHT WING AL MACADAM

Only Baron to play all 160 games, deserving of a medal or a free shrink appointment. The 3rd 'M' solid player, 111 points 110 PIMs in two years in the wilderness. Overall, 864 NHL games with 240 career goals, very solid player.

DEFENSE GREG SMITH

Solid defensive style, could rush the puck, in his two years there he had 16 goals and 157 penalty minutes. I remember watching him with the Wings in the early eighties, he had some flaws in his game but he could run a second unit power play and was not afraid to hit someone, any time any place. Kind of a poor mans Carol Vadnais.

DEFENSE RICK HAMPTON

I wish someone could explain this guys career to me. A d-man in name only, played forward a fair amount of time but was a master at running the power play, in two seasons with the wretched barons he scored 16 then 18 goals, with a total of 76 points. At 22, the world seemed to be his.
He played parts of two more seasons with the Kings, then bounced around the minors, even going to Switzerland. He played his last NHL game before his 24th birthday. I wish someone could tell me why.

GOALIE GILLES MELOCHE

The robber baron. five foot eight, solid goalie for a long time with bad teams, hence his career record of 270-351-131. Had really cool mustache in an era when facial hair was the in thing.

OTHER NOTABLES

WALT MCKECHNIE, who played nine playoff games his rookie year, then made the playoffs once in his next seventeen seasons on some really bad teams. Probably saw more bad hockey from ice level than anyone ever.

RICK JODZIO Played part of the final season in Cleveland. While with the Calgary Cowboys threw one of the most famous sucker punches in hockey history against Quebecs Marc Tardif. Story has nothing to do with Barons but just wanted it remembered because of my love for the WHA.

Thanks for reading, thanks for letting me do this.

Click to read more...

 

[Hoser]

The Cleveland Barons simply were the greatest organization in AHL history, shining from 1937 til 1973, They appeared in 14 Calder cup finals, winning a league record 9 of them, a record that to this day still hasnt been broken.

Sadly, this is not their story.

This is the story of a team from California that tried for nine years to prove hockey could draw even with a bad team in Northern California, tried with worse and worse teams before new owner Melvin Swig finally gave up and moved the team to his hometown of Cleveland, returning in glory. Sort of.

Mel Swig was born in Boston and made his home in San Francisco. He wasn't from Cleveland. His minority partners (~40%), George and Gordon Gund, were from Cleveland. It was their idea to move the team there, not Swig's.


As a point of trivia Mel Swig was once the Seals' owner when they played in the WHL in the 1960s. He sold his share of the Seals to George Fleharty and a bevy of minority partners (including Bing Crosby) fronted by Barry Van Gerbig in 1966, shortly before the final expansion bids were pitched to the NHL.

The team was originally known as the San Francisco Seals and they played at the Cow Palace in Daly City. The move to Oakland Coliseum was imposed by the NHL, who deemed the Cow Palace "unfit for major league hockey".

 

[kaiser matias]

Mel Swig was born in Boston and made his home in San Francisco. He wasn't from Cleveland. His minority partners (~40%), George and Gordon Gund, were from Cleveland. It was their idea to move the team there, not Swig's.


As a point of trivia Mel Swig was once the Seals' owner when they played in the WHL in the 1960s. He sold his share of the Seals to George Fleharty and a bevy of minority partners (including Bing Crosby) fronted by Barry Van Gerbig in 1966, shortly before the final expansion bids were pitched to the NHL.

The team was originally known as the San Francisco Seals and they played at the Cow Palace in Daly City. The move to Oakland Coliseum was imposed by the NHL, who deemed the Cow Palace "unfit for major league hockey".

Unfit enough that they let the Sharks play there for their first two seasons.

 

[Hoser]

Ironic, I know.

Even more ironic: the Sharks' first owners were George and Gordon Gund! (Gordon sold his share in 2002, while George retained a stake in Sharks Sports & Entertainment until his death two months ago.)


Swig had intended to move the Golden Seals back to San Francisco. He lobbied the government hard to build a new arena at Yerba Buena. His ally, mayor Joseph Alioto, couldn't run for another term after 1975 and left-winger George Moscone was elected to succeed him. Moscone wasn't a supporter of the project and a mayor's group that was commissioned to study the feasibility of the arena project officially killed it in May, 1976. A few weeks later Swig announced the move to Cleveland.

(The Yerba Buena site is now occupied by a convention centre bearing Moscone's name; Moscone was infamously assassinated in 1978.)

 

[aemoreira1981]

One has to wonder what could have become of the Golden Seals had Charlie Finley not been approved as the owner of the Seals and been such a penny-pincher, causing a major talent loss to the WHA after the 1971-72 season. By the time Mel Swig bought the team, it may already have been too late.

I like how you emphasize that the Barons never got a chance to be successful...reminiscent of a lot of WHA teams who ended up playing under horrible lease terms. Perhaps not ironically, there isn't any trace of the former home arena of the Barons either (save for wider lanes on Streetsboro Road near I-271); like the Barons, the Richfield Coliseum site has been reclaimed by nature. As for the Coliseum at Richfield, the Gunds finally did buy it in 1981---3 years after the Barons folded.

BTW---the goaltending coach for Pittsburgh today? That scrappy Meloche.

 

[Psycho Papa Joe]

If you think about it, the Seals/Barons were reborn as the SJ Sharks 15 years later. The Barons merged with the North Stars and then the Sharks were created via a dispersal draft of players from the North Stars.

 

[tarheelhockey]

I'm enjoying these write-ups. These are the teams I know the least about, by a long shot, and yet they have some of the best stories to tell. Thanks for sharing them and keeping their flame burning.

 

[Syckle78]

That was a really interesting read. Thanks for posting it, yave.

 

[SealsFan]

One of those few crowds over 10,000 was a mind-numbing 13-3 loss to Buffalo on a Saturday night in their second season. How do you lose like that before a big home crowd? That was during a Feb./March 0-10-5 run that dashed any slim playoff hopes.

On the plus side they dealt Montreal one of their 10 losses and beat Boston at the Garden.

Another odd situation that season had them playing on four consecutive nights. A snowed-out game was rescheduled between a Wednesday and Friday home game, so they played three straight nights at home... and WON ALL 3 against the Islanders, Sabres and Leafs! On the last night they lost at Pittsburgh. The combined attendance for those 3 home games was barely 8,000!

In their first season, there was a Sunday afternoon matinee in March against the Rangers after playing in Atlanta the night before. The game was televised and the Ranger announcers sounded as delirious as the Barons looked. One of the announcers started to key in on winger Bob Girard, who was floating up and down his wing. "Here comes Girard... just getting his paycheck today...not touching the puck or anyone else..." It got to the point where every time Girard took the ice, the announcer couldn't focus on anything else and had to make more comments, and soon was in spasmodic laughter, the kind where you can't stop. The laughing went on and on and it was one of the more bizarre hockey games I'd ever watched.

 

[rmchahn]

Actually he didnt quite make it to cleveland, the Barons played at the state of the art Richfield Coliseum, an arena built for the WHA Crusaders and NBA Cavaliers. Problem was, the stadium, rather than being downtown (where the people are) it was built 30 miles out of town (where the people are not).

Because of the location of their arena, the joke was that the Barons were the only team to play all 80 games on the road.

 

[Mayor Bee]

Because of the location of their arena, the joke was that the Barons were the only team to play all 80 games on the road.

I've been saying for years that Richfield is a location so remote that I need to videotape the journey from Akron/Canton/Massillon to Richfield, or from Cleveland to Richfield, just to show how far out in the middle of nowhere it is.

We're visiting the in-laws this weekend, so I just might do it.

 

[Killion]

I've been saying for years that Richfield is a location so remote...

... and so rural that you needed a snowmobile to get there sometimes what with the added
problem during the season of lake-effect-snowstorms blowing in off Erie. Could take hrs, stuck.

 

[bruins309]

I've been saying for years that Richfield is a location so remote that I need to videotape the journey from Akron/Canton/Massillon to Richfield, or from Cleveland to Richfield, just to show how far out in the middle of nowhere it is.

It's so far out there that when they tore down the Richfield Coliseum in the late 90s when the Cavaliers got their arena in downtown Cleveland, they turned the area into a nature preserve. That's pretty unprecedented.

 

[Stephen]

Those AHL Cleveland Barons uniforms were pretty sharp:

 

[Mayor Bee]

It's so far out there that when they tore down the Richfield Coliseum in the late 90s when the Cavaliers got their arena in downtown Cleveland, they turned the area into a nature preserve. That's pretty unprecedented.

The traffic backup was the stuff of legend, and was only exacerbated by the fact that OH-303 was one lane in both directions, with a center turn lane around the Coliseum. Supposedly the only way to find where the Coliseum stood is to find the area of the road that opens up to three lanes.

 

[nutbar]

Wasn't there serious talk of Cleveland getting an NHL team in the 50's because of the success of the old Barons? Ironic that when Cleveland finally got a team it was such a disaster.

 

[FlyerBearsCheesehead]

The Cleveland Barons simply were the greatest organization in AHL history, shining from 1937 til 1973, They appeared in 14 Calder cup finals, winning a league record 9 of them, a record that to this day still hasnt been broken.QUOTE]

Great post, but Hershey has won the Calder Cup 11 times.

 

[Killion]

Wasn't there serious talk of Cleveland getting an NHL team in the 50's because of the success of the old Barons? Ironic that when Cleveland finally got a team it was such a disaster.

Yes, its been discussed at length on other threads here, but in both the 40's & 50's; in the 40's actually invited to join as the Cleveland franchise was doing extremely well in the fairly recently formed AHL, playing out of a new arena. This was during WW2 when the NHL was experiencing some problems, and so it was felt in adding Cleveland theyd gain some stability. The then owner "Uncle" Al Sutphin declined Big Jim Norrises invitation as he was a founder of the AHL & felt his departure would harm the then fledgling league. Sutphin sold his interests in the Barons & the arena in 1949. Early 50's Cleveland decided to try & join the NHL, however, Norris never forgot a slight, closed & bolted the door, denied entry, the Barons reacting by then challenging the NHL for the Stanley Cup. Cleveland had an excellent team & its own farm system, mightve done some damage, challenge refused. What eventually killed the Barons was the entry of the Crusaders of the WHA. Basically squeezed out of the market. Moved to Florida, then sold to Syracuse.

 

[nutbar]

The WHA's Crusaders (who played at Richfield from 74 to 76) actually drew slightly better than the Barons did, on average.

 

[aemoreira1981]

I've been saying for years that Richfield is a location so remote that I need to videotape the journey from Akron/Canton/Massillon to Richfield, or from Cleveland to Richfield, just to show how far out in the middle of nowhere it is.

We're visiting the in-laws this weekend, so I just might do it.

That and the fact that there was only one way to and from the arena---at the interchange. it was poorly thought out.

It's so far out there that when they tore down the Richfield Coliseum in the late 90s when the Cavaliers got their arena in downtown Cleveland, they turned the area into a nature preserve. That's pretty unprecedented.

Preservationists wanted it as such all along...and the Coliseum won, albeit for only 20 years or so.

 

[Mayor Bee]

Good news! We shot a couple of takes doing "the Richfield Run" on 303, coming from the east and from the west. One was nearly a disaster...turns out police setting up a speed trap don't like the idea of being on camera.

I'll get everything extracted and hopefully uploaded to Youtube in the next couple of days.