Tropical Hockey League

Tropical Hockey League
Sport	Ice hockey
Founded	1938
Ceased	1939 (resurrected in 1940)
Country	United States
Last; champion(s)	Coral Gables Seminoles
Most titles	Coral Gables Seminoles (1)

The Tropical Hockey League (THL) was a short-lived ice hockey minor league in Miami, Florida. The initial league had four teams, all based in Miami, and lasted for only one season, 1938–39, before folding; it was briefly resurrected in 1940 before folding for good the following year. Nicknamed the Grapefruit League,^[1] it was notable as the first attempt to establish professional hockey in Florida—or the Southern United States in general—though it ultimately had minimal impact on popularizing the sport in the region.

History

The Tropical Hockey League was established as an attempt to introduce ice hockey to the Southern United States. Its founders hoped to take advantage of the large population of "snowbirds" from Eastern Canada who wintered in south Florida.^[2] The league consisted of four teams, all of which played at the Miami Coliseum (renamed the Metropolitan Ice Palace) in Coral Gables. The Miami Clippers, Miami Beach Pirates, the Coral Gables Seminoles, and the Havana Tropicals.^[3] The inclusion of a Havana team (albeit one playing in the United States) was designed to attract in particular Cuban Americans to the sport.^[2] Before the inaugural season had even started, the league was considering expanding to Jacksonville and even the Bahamas.^[4]^[5]

Because it was not affiliated with the Amateur Hockey Association of the United States, founded the year before as a new governing body for ice hockey in the United States, the THL struggled to recruit top-tier talent. W. G. Hardy, then-president of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (and future president of the IIHF), warned Canadians against signing contracts with the Tropical Hockey League.^[6] Nevertheless, the THL's players, with just three exceptions, were all Canadians recruited from camps in Port Colborne, Ontario and Winnipeg, Manitoba.^[7] The Seminoles, having recruited much of their roster from Western Canada, developed an on-ice rivalry with the other three teams, which were predominantly eastern Canadian.^[1]

One notable figure was Magnus "Mike" Goodman, a former member of the Winnipeg Falcons who won the gold medal in hockey for Canada in the 1920 Summer Olympics; he served the Seminoles as player-coach.^[7] Other teams sought out similar talent for their manager positions; the Pirates signed Stan Jackson, a former winger for the Boston Bruins and Toronto St. Pats, while the Clippers hired Harold "Bullet Joe" Simpson, former manager of the National Hockey League's New York Americans and future Hockey Hall of Famer.^[8] The Clippers also signed defensemen Bob Dill, who would go on to play with the New York Rangers, and Frank Mailley, who played one game for the Montreal Canadiens.

The league's inaugural game, billed as "the first hockey game ever staged in the South", was played between the Clippers and Pirates on December 10, 1938. It was preceded by demonstrations of the sport by the players and featured a mambo concert after the second period. The game ended with a fight following a 3–2 victory by the Clippers.^[7] The Tropical Hockey League made it through a 15-game season in 1938–39, with the Seminoles being crowned regular season champions.^[3]

Goodman's Seminoles went on to play an "All-Star Game" against the best players from the other three teams, which the Seminoles lost 6-5.^[9] This, however, would be the last game played by the original THL.^[2] The league had failed to attract much interest from the community, in part due to its late start times, weak competition, and tendency for games to devolve into fighting. With its promoters losing money, the first hockey experiment in the southern United States folded at the end of the season.^[7]^[10]

The THL was briefly resurrected as a three-team amateur league in 1940. This iteration of the league was bankrolled by Burdines, Pan American, and Florida Power & Light, and featured the Clippers, Pirates, and Indians (the former Seminoles); Goodman and Simpson returned as coaches.^[11]^[12]^[10] Unlike the 1938-39 league, most of these rosters were made up of recruits from the Miami area, including college students and Army, Navy, and Air Corps servicemen.^[13] The 1941 Clippers featured a former NHLer in Bill Regan, as well as the son of Stanley Cup-winning goaltender Hap Holmes.^[14]^[15] Though records are unclear, it appears that this league folded around September 1941, after the city of Coral Gables "took away" the Coliseum from the THL—thus depriving the league of a home rink.^[16]

Final standings

Tropical Hockey League, 1938-39 season
	GP	W	L	GF	GA	Pts
Coral Gables Seminoles	14	12	2	85	53	24
Miami Clippers	13	7	6	53	58	14
Miami Beach Pirates	14	5	9	57	69	10
Havana Tropicals	15	4	11	69	84	8

Legacy

The Tropical Hockey League experiment did little to popularize hockey in the South.^[3] After 1941, there would be no further attempt to establish professional hockey in the region until 1956, when the Eastern Hockey League placed the Charlotte Clippers, later the Charlotte Checkers, in Charlotte, North Carolina.^[3] Florida did not get another hockey team until the Jacksonville Rockets joined the EHL in 1964.^[17] From 1992 to 1995 there was another minor hockey league based in Florida, the Sunshine Hockey League.^[18] Major league hockey did not expand into the South until the 1970s, with the NHL's Atlanta Flames and the World Hockey Association's Houston Aeros (both in 1972).

The WHA had also attempted to place another team in Miami, the Screaming Eagles, but the plan fell apart due to the unsuitability of existing arenas (including the Coliseum).^[19] The NHL finally expanded to Florida in the 1992–93 season, awarding an expansion franchise to the Tampa Bay Lightning; hockey returned to Miami the following season with the establishment of the Florida Panthers.

The NHL would not see a Florida-born player until Val James, who made his brief debut with the 1981–82 Buffalo Sabres; the first Florida-raised player in the NHL would be Brian Ferlin, who played for junior hockey in Jacksonville before debuting with the 2014–15 Bruins.^[20]

Notes

^ ^a ^b Young, Scott (January 11, 1939). "In the Neutral Zone". Winnipeg Free Press. Retrieved June 13, 2022.
^ ^a ^b ^c "Tropical Hockey League finds home in HHOF". Florida Hockey Life. February 2018. Retrieved June 12, 2022.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Mancuso and Kelly, p. 7.
^ "Tropical Ice League Teams Plan Drills". The Winnipeg Tribune. November 19, 1938. Retrieved August 22, 2022.
^ "Nassau Skaters Seeking Berth in Hockey Loop". The Miami News. November 4, 1938. Retrieved June 13, 2022.
^ "Professor Hardy Warns Canadian Hockey Players". Lethbridge Herald. Lethbridge, Alberta. October 17, 1938. p. 10.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d McKinley, p. 124.
^ Vintage Ice Hockey [@vintageicehky] (May 13, 2020). "And this article gives an overview of the league, which was upfront in saying the players weren't locals" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
^ "All-Stars Win in Hockey Finale". Miami Herald. February 17, 1939. Retrieved June 13, 2022.
^ ^a ^b "Joe and Mike Develop Hockey Stars in Miami". Miami Herald. Oct 27, 1940. Retrieved June 13, 2022.
^ "Amateur Hockey Men Will Meet". The Miami News. May 24, 1940. Retrieved June 13, 2022.
^ "Thrill-Packed Game". The Miami News. July 21, 1941. Retrieved June 13, 2022.
^ "Hockey League Play Scheduled". Miami Herald. June 11, 1941. Retrieved June 20, 2022.
^ "Miami Faces Beach in Hockey Battle". The Miami News. June 23, 1941. Retrieved June 13, 2022.
^ "Hockey Teams to Aid Crippled Children". The Miami News. July 14, 1940. Retrieved June 20, 2022.
^ "Topics of the Tropics". The Miami News. September 25, 1941. Retrieved June 13, 2022.
^ Mancuso and Kelly, p. 9.
^ Mancuso and Kelly, p. 15.
^ "Miami Screaming Eagles". Archived from the original on 2017-06-05.
^ "NHL Players Born in Florida ‑ All-Time Stats Leaders".

References

Mancuso, Jim; Pat Kelly (2006). Hockey in Charlotte. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 0-7385-4230-X. Retrieved December 21, 2010.
McKinley, Michael (2009). Hockey: A People's History. Random House Digital. ISBN 978-0771057717. Retrieved June 25, 2013.