Pursuing one final skate for a beloved hockey league
Pucks from the Erie Blades and Philadelphia Firebirds, two of the teams that played in the original North American Hockey League.
Mike Boland died last October. In January, it was Gordon Talbot. This summer, Bob Winograd.
Three hockey players, all in their 70s, who also shared this: They played in the old North American Hockey League.
Their deaths have come as I've been thinking increasingly about the league and an idea I've kicked around for some time — bringing its players, officials and fans together one more time.
The NAHL lasted just four seasons, from 1973 to 1977, with three Pennsylvania teams. Next September will mark 50 years since the league folded.
It also may represent one of the last good opportunities to hold a reunion while enough of the people who made the rough-and-tumble NAHL what it was are still around to enjoy it.
The scoreboard clock is ticking down.
That’s why I’ve shared publicly — on the Real North American Hockey League Facebook group — a loose idea to organize an NAHL get-together in Philadelphia, which was home to the league’s Firebirds.
Other cities could argue to be hosts: The Syracuse (N.Y.) Blazers won the league’s championship, the Lockhart Cup, in seasons one and four. The Johnstown (Pa.) Jets won in year two and were the basis for the movie, “Slap Shot.”
But Philadelphia won the championship in 1976 and was the league’s biggest city.
The league disbanded on Sept. 24, 1977, in Philadelphia. A gathering there in September 2027 would bring things full circle.
One more night
And, well, although I grew up in Maine, I live in Hershey, Pa., now and Philly is only 100 miles away. The NAHL’s Maine Nordiques will always be my favorite team, but the Firebirds have the best logo I’ve ever seen. I have a Firebirds bumper sticker on my car.
So I tossed out the idea of a Philadelphia brewery as the site for a reunion.
This is all very much hypothetical right now, but the Facebook group response was encouraging.
“Absolutely, I’m in,” wrote David “Sudsy” Settlemyre, the Firebirds’ trainer, who also got into games as an emergency goalie in each of the team’s three seasons.
“As a former player, I’d love for this to happen,” wrote Michael Smith, a defenseman who played for Syracuse and the Long Island Cougars.
The daughter of a former NAHL goalie reached out to me directly, indicating that he was willing to help plan a reunion. She gave me his phone number.
Fans from Buffalo and Binghamton, N.Y., said they would attend. A former NAHL linesman expressed the same. A fan offered to help connect me with a brewery.
I'm hoping to hear from more people as I continue exploring the idea.
Reunion might be too lofty a term for whatever this becomes. I’d like to keep this as informal as possible.
I envision three hours of sharing stories, team and league memorabilia, autographs and maybe a panel discussion.
I want this to feel like fans and players hanging out at the same bar after a game, as they did at the Back Door Tavern in Syracuse back in the day.
That bar was owned by former Blazers player Brian Elwell.
He died in 2023 at age 79.