{"id":1791,"date":"2016-02-13T18:45:58","date_gmt":"2016-02-14T00:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fredsportsextra.com\/?p=1791"},"modified":"2022-12-05T20:41:29","modified_gmt":"2022-12-06T02:41:29","slug":"oklahoma-city-blazers-circa-1965-67","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fredsportsextra.com\/?p=1791","title":{"rendered":"Oklahoma City Blazers Circa 1965-67 – The Original Big Time Professional Team of the City"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was the spring of 1966 and my hockey\u00a0team, the Oklahoma City Blazers, had won the championship of the Central Hockey League, the Adams Cup.\u00a0 No, the Blazers were not the Stanly Cup winners and the Central Professional\u00a0Hockey League was not the National Hockey League.\u00a0 But don\u2019t forget, the NHL had six teams at the time, Toronto, Montreal, Detroit, Chicago, New York and Boston were the major league hockey teams playing in 1966.. Only six, not the 30 something the League has today.\u00a0 The top 120 players in the world played on those <\/span>six teams.\u00a0\u00a0 The players of those Blazers teams would have played at the major league level\u00a0if the era of the sixties had\u00a0that number of\u00a0teams.\u00a0I was witness\u00a0to\u00a0\u201cbig time\u201d world class <\/span>hockey\u00a0at the time in Oklahoma City.<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n

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Lord Stanley\u2019s Cup was fought over by those\u00a0one hundred twenty\u00a0men, and the winning players on the team that won\u00a0the Cup, as is still today, were members of the best hockey team on earth. \u00a0But unlike today, most of the great players that were young, say 18, or 20, or 21, played in the CPHL, not the NHL.<\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n

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Oklahoma City\u2019s new hockey team of\u00a0the 1965-66 season\u00a0was franchised to our city by the Boston Bruins organization through the oversite of the NHL. Boston\u2019s Baby Bears were\u00a0to be named Blazers, not\u00a0Bruins when\u00a0they relocated their team of future NHL stars from Minneapolis.\u00a0The Blazers woulld wear the same uiforms as the Boston Bruins, with the large B on the\u00a0hockey jersey standing for both Blazers and Bruins.\u00a0 \u00a0At the time of 1965\u00a0this new\u00a0reorganized of\u00a0the Central Professional\u00a0Hockey League, 2nd season\u00a0would have\u00a0teams in St. Louis, Tulsa, St. Paul, Memphis, Houston, and Oklahoma City.\u00a0\u00a0The CPHL had rules that kept the best young professional players that didn\u2019t make the NHL on the rosters of one of the six teams in the CPHL.\u00a0 Older veteran hockey players at the <\/em>highest minor league level were assigned to the American Hockey League, which also had six teams.\u00a0 Because the new CPHL (which was owned by the NHL and started one year earlier for the 1964-65 season) had the\u00a0cream of the\u00a0youngest\u00a0players in professional hockey, the league allowed a sprinkling of a few\u00a0older experienced players on each team. \u00a0All most all of these older players had\u00a0NHL or AHL experience.\u00a0The CPHL became the\u00a0best minor league\u00a0in the world along with the youngest talent in pro hockey not playing in the NHL.\u00a0\u00a0The league would be known as the fastest hockey on earth.\u00a0 The skill and play of the teams in the CPHL was outstanding. \u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n

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With expansion and the coming of the World Hockey League a few years later, hockey became watered down at every level, including the CPHL.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t know it in 1965 but Oklahoma City in truth had a real taste of ice hockey at the highest level with future<\/em> greats of the NHL adorning the rosters of the six teams.\u00a0 The many of the young guns of the original Blazers moved up a few years later to the parent club and as the Boston Bruins claimed Lord Stanley\u2019s Cup in the 1970 and 1972 seasons.\u00a0 Even the Blazers Head Coach Harry Sinden, moved up with his talented players and coached \u00a0both NHL title teams for Beantown.\u00a0 The only regrets is that the greatest Bruin ever, Bobby Orr, didn\u2019t get to play on one of the OKC Blazer teams.\u00a0 We all know why\u00a0Mr. Orr didn\u2019t come to OKC but\u00a0without the Blazers who reached Boston through OKC ,\u00a0he\u00a0wouldn\u2019t have his name on the Cup.\u00a0\u00a0 Those Blazers of 1965-66 were the backbone of the Boston Bruins great teams of the 1970\u2019s.<\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n

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The memories of those teams will never be forgotten. \u00a0Like when Glenn Sather skated along the boards and without warning punched a opposing team fan in the face for mouthing him with\u00a0obscenities during the game.\u00a0 Mr. Sather busted the fan and blood spilled in the stands.\u00a0 Or when Blazer goalie Gerry Cheevers went after a Tulsa winger with his stick and tremendous fight followeded,\u00a0where in \u00a0Mr. Cheavers beat the crap out of the Oiler hockey player.<\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n

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Even though some of the players were just eighteen, twenty , or twenty-one, they were the future of the NHL.\u00a0 They cut their professional teeth in the new league, and the fans who attended Blazer games watched great hockey.\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n

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My Blazers that won the Stanley Cup with Boston included:\u00a0 John Arbour, Garnet Bailey, Nick Beverly, Wayne Cashman, Gerry Cheevers, Gary Doak, Jim Harrison, Bill Lesuk, Jim Lorentz, Don Marcotte, Derrick Sanderson, Dallas Smith, Rick Smith, Frank Spring, Tom Webster, Barry Wilkins, and \u00a0Bob Stewart.\u00a0 Harry Sinden was the player coach for the Blazers during the 65-66 season.\u00a0 This list doesn\u2019t include other Blazers who made their mark with other NHL or WHL teams of the time.<\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n

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It was the spring of 1966 and my hockey\u00a0team, the Oklahoma City Blazers, had won…<\/p>\n

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