About Me  | Most Recent Posts John Elway Hall of Fame TributePosted Aug-29-08 22:45:34 PDT Updated Aug-29-08 22:47:27 PDT Cleveland Crusaders 1973-74 WHA hockey actionPosted Aug-15-08 14:44:58 PDT Updated Aug-15-08 14:45:23 PDT Legends of Hockey Video: Wayne Gretzky - A Biography (Part 2 of 2)Posted Jul-30-08 20:52:20 PDT Updated Jul-30-08 20:53:13 PDT Legends of Hockey Video: Wayne Gretzky - A Biography (Part 1 of 2)Posted Jul-29-08 21:13:54 PDT Updated Jul-29-08 21:31:01 PDT USFL, XFL, new items, new associate, and morePosted Jul-29-08 20:49:33 PDT New USFL and XFL listings have been added, increasing our line of vintage items for defunct football teams. We're continuing to add teams and other items as we grow, and more garment selections for our existing items. Special thanks to our newest associate, Jon Ellen, for his hard work adding several hundred listings and creating a spreadsheet system to increase our organizations ability to function smoothly. We're very excited about some new items we'll be listing in the near future featuring professional wildlife photography by our good friend and aspiring professional photographer Matt Carter. And don't forget, we can always do "custom work," adding your logo, photo, or text, to any of our printable garments! Do you have a lawn care business that needs t-shirts? Or a softball, football, baseball, basketball, or soccer team that needs jerseys? We can also embroider golf shirts for your corporation. Inquire within for details. Keep coming back and checking because we're expanding into new ideas and ways to improve our product line above and beyond what we currently offer. World Football LeaguePosted Jul-20-08 21:56:10 PDT Updated Jul-20-08 21:56:48 PDT This week we take a break from the NASL and begin work on the World Football League (WFL) of 1974-75. We've already added a few items for starters including the Birmingham Americans, Chicago Fire, and a rare World Bowl t-shirt. Here's a little history on the WFL: Gary L. Davidson was the driving force behind the WFL. He had helped start the marginally successful American Basketball Association and World Hockey Association, in which some of their teams survived long enough to enter the established basketball and hockey leagues. His World Football League did not survive against the NFL, much less bring any surviving teams into it. The fledgling WFL did succeed in raising stagnant salaries in the NFL. Average salaries of NFL players were among the lowest in the four major sports. Davidson's league garnered major news when the Memphis Southmen, led by John F. Bassett, signed three Miami Dolphins players, fullback Larry Csonka, halfback Jim Kiick, and wide receiver Paul Warfield to what was then the richest 3-player deal in sports, an astounding US$3.5 million to start in 1975. The pact was a guaranteed, personal services contract, so the three would be paid even if the WFL didn't survive its first season. Immediately, the NFL took notice as did its players when they were approached to jump leagues. The Oakland Raiders lost both their quarterbacks, Ken Stabler who signed with the Birmingham Americans and Daryle LamonicaSouthern California Sun, starting in 1975. The Dallas Cowboys also took roster hits when WFL teams in Hawaii and Houston signed running back Calvin Hill and quarterback Craig Morton who penned a contract to play for the respectively. The Hawaiians also signed Minnesota Vikings Pro Bowl WR John Gilliam and San Francisco 49'ers All-Pro TE Ted Kwalick. However, Gilliam would end up with the Chicago Winds and Kwalick signed with the Philadelphia Bell prior to the 1975 season. By early June 1974, the WFL claimed they had some 60 NFL stars and regulars under contract. Playing a 20-game regular season schedule in 1974 – six games longer than the NFL's then 14-game season – the WFL staged no exhibition games (although its teams did participate in preseason scrimmages). The season was to begin on Wednesday, July 10 and ended on Wednesday, November 13. This was a 20-game season in 19 weeks --- a schedule accomplished by having double games (primarily Monday and Friday) on Labor Day weekend. Some complained that the schedule was poorly drafted. For one thing, although most teams played on Wednesday nights with a national TV game slated for Thursday nights, the Hawaiians played their home games on Sunday afternoons. This meant that when the Hawaiians had a home game they played an opponent who flew to Honolulu after having played just four days earlier. In addition, back-to-back meetings between two teams were common. The original schedule called for a four-team playoff, with semifinal playoffs held on Wednesday-Thursday November 20-November 21, and the World BowlNovember 29th (the night after Thanksgiving). League officials boldly discussed plans for expansion teams in Europe and Asia. on Friday, In the first few weeks, the WFL looked to be a resounding success. Attendance outpaced the first week of the American Football League of 1960, averaging just under 43,000 a game. The box office numbers proved to be the beginning of the WFL's undoing. In Jacksonville, the Sharks admitted that 44,000 tickets were giveaways. The Philadelphia Bell whose first two home games totaled 120,000 fans, told the press that over 100,000 had been sold for almost nothing. Presumably the giveaways were intended in part to pique the public's curiosity and interest, but the attempt was unsuccessful. Six games into the first season, WFL franchises were in serious trouble. The Detroit Wheels were looking to move to Charlotte, North Carolina and the Florida Blazers made overtures of bringing the first place club to Atlanta. By September, the barely one-year old league had bottomed out when two franchises relocated. The New York Stars relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina as the Charlotte Hornets, and the Houston Texans, the first WFL team to relocate in mid-season, moved to Shreveport, Louisiana as the Shreveport Steamer. In October, the league pulled the plug on the Detroit Wheels and the Jacksonville Sharks after 14 games. The folding of the Jacksonville franchise meant that the Gator Bowl would not host World Bowl I. (Ironically, Jacksonville was also slated to be the host of the 1986 USFL Championship Game, but that game was never played. It would not be until February 2005 that the city would host its first championship pro football game, Super Bowl XXXIX.) Reports of financial hardship abounded. There were stories of Portland Storm players being fed by local citizens, and of the Charlotte Hornets having their uniforms impounded for not paying a laundry bill from the time the team was located in New York. The Florida Blazers players reportedly survived on McDonald's meal vouchers. Late in the year, the league announced that it was going to award its MVP a cash prize at the World Bowl. It was literally a cash prize. Rather than endure the embarrassment of media sneers about whether a WFL check would clear, the league neatly stacked cash high upon a table in the middle of the field. The MVP award was a three-way split, and the players involved split the cash. Despite the disasters, many thought the WFL performed fairly well, though below NFL standards. Many games were tight, decided by seven points or less, and the Action Point, the one-point conversion run or pass attempt after a touchdown, was favored among WFL coaches and critics. The league championship – the World Bowl, or World Bowl I – was staged in BirminghamBirmingham American and Florida Blazers. The Action Point proved to be the equalizer as the Americans won the championship by a single point, 22-21. The day after the World Bowl, the champions' uniforms were confiscated by sheriff's deputies. (Sports Illustratedonly World Bowl".) referred to the game, prophetically, as "The first, and possibly between the hometown Though many predicted the WFL was dead, the league returned for the 1975 season, with a new leader, president Chris Hemmeter, former co-owner of the 1974 Hawaiians franchise, and some new owners with new names. The deceased Sharks of Jacksonville came back as the 'Express.' The Portland Storm became the Portland Thunder, the Birmingham Americans renamed the Vulcans, and the Chicago Fire became the Winds. The World Bowl runner-up Florida BlazersSan Antonio, Texas as the San Antonio Wings. Only two teams, Memphis and Philadelphia, returned with the same ownership from the prior season. folded; its franchise rights were relocated to The league changed its scheduling format from 20 games without exhibitions to 18 games (played in 20 weeks due to the odd number of teams) with exhibitions. Gone were weeknight games; the new schedule had games on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. But the league still was snake-bit. Although the original plan called for a July 5 preseason opener and August 2 regular season openers, the regular season had to open a week earlier, with a single game on Saturday, July 26, due to a stadium conflict. This meant that a single regular season game was played in the midst of the last weekend of preseason play (with some preseason games being played the next night). Several more NFL free agents including Calvin Hill and Ted Kwalick signed on with the struggling WFL, and the Chicago Winds made an offer to aging Super Bowl III MVP Joe Namath, who seriously considered the offer before refusing and resigning with the New York Jets. The embarrassing rejection by Namath, after they had invested so much effort in signing him, seriously hurt the Winds, who folded five weeks into the season. Shortly afterward, the entire league shut down and the Birmingham Vulcans, with a league best record of 9-3 were awarded the league championship. With the relative financial stability of the Birmingham and Memphis clubs, both attempted to join the NFL but were refused. In 1979, the Memphis club owners filed an anti-trust suit against the NFL. Their case was ultimately dismissed on May 30, 1984. Although the NFL expanded in 1976, that expansion had been planned before the WFL's first season. "Slow delivery" even when not?Posted Jul-16-08 20:04:19 PDT We've been receiving a few comments regarding "slow shipping" and "took a month to receive." In each RARE case (in which it has yet to be our fault), we always made sure that we took care of the customer either by enclosing a FREE shirt or granting a full or partial refund as promptly as possible. However a recent comment suggested that our delivery was "slow," when in fact we had beat our promised turnaround by a full 7 business days. The low scores in delivery time will continue to knock down that percentage and we'll be in danger of losing our "Power Seller" status. It's important to note again here that our business is so rare and unique that if we ever had to close our doors due to poor feedback on turnaround times, these great logos will once again disappear into the wind, and 99% are not available anywhere else in the world. If you happen to be a potential customer and are reading this, we ask that you take a good close look at our service record and note that in each case of a delay it was VERY slight and out of our control (in one instance the package was lost by UPS, a new garment had to be ordered, then the supplier had a back-order...even with all of this we were only behind less than 10 business days, gave a $50 refund AND a free t-shirt worth $20 retail). Before you leave a negative feedback or delivery score, please consider all factors and count BUSINESS DAYS (which do not include weekends or holidays), and the count starts the first business day AFTER the product is ordered. We're doing everything we can here to be as fast as possible. Keep in mind however that with hand-made, custom made-to-order products, and hand re-created logos, production times can vary and situations can arise. In closing, please by all means, do not leave a negative feedback comment or delivery score when we have made good on our promise. If we state 15 business days in the listing and deliver in 8 business days, we very well should deserve a positive comment and a 5-star score for delivery time. New items including ringers, and some Chicago Cougars hockey history!Posted Jul-09-08 23:05:01 PDT Some very nice new products are being added to our growing line of apparel with our retro logos. One of the new items includes a Port and Company ringer tee, an athletic heather color with black trim, to feature all our current logos and more to come in the future. We'll be adding more ringers of varying brands in the days to come. One of the teams we added a listing for on the new ringer is the Chicago Cougars from the World Hockey Association. Our early listings of the Cougars had no team history so we are including a synopsis in this blog post below. Enjoy! The Chicago Cougars were an original franchise in the World Hockey Association from 1972 to 1975. The Cougars played their home games in the dilapidated International Amphitheatre. During the 1974 Avco Cup Finals against Gordie Howe and the Houston Aeros, the team's two home games were played at the Randhurst Twin Ice Arena in suburban Mount Prospect. This was because a presentation of Peter Pan starring gynmast Cathy Rigby was booked into the Amphitheatre and thus made the arena unavailable for the playoffs (see Peter Pan Incident, below). Just prior to the their third season, the team was sold to Cougars players Ralph Backstrom, Dave Dryden, and player-coach Pat Stapleton after the original owners, Walter and Jordon Kaiser, were unable to secure funds to build a new arena. The land for the arena, originally named the O'Hare Sports Arena, was sold to the village of Rosemont and became the Rosemont Horizon (now the Allstate Arena). This building is the now the home of the Chicago Wolves of the American Hockey League. They were placed in the Western Division for their first season (1972-73) and transferred to the Eastern Division for their final two seasons (1973-74 and 1974-75). 1972-73 Season The Cougars finished last in the WHA's Western Division during the season with 54 points. Team defense finished 8th overall with 295 goals against and dead last in team offense with 245 goals. The one bright spot for Chicago was Bob Sicinski finishing 5th in the league with 63 assists. 1973-74 Season The Cougars finished fourth in the Eastern Division with 81 points. They were seventh overall in goals for with 271 and sixth overall in goals against with 273. Pat Stapleton finished ninth in the league with 52 assists and Ralph Backstrom followed in tenth with 50. Larry Mavety finished tenth in the league with 157 penalty minutes. The Cougars would make their only postseason appearance that year. In the Eastern Division semifinals, they upset the defending league champion New England Whalers, four games to three. In the divisional final, they defeated the Toronto Toros, four games to three, with the Cougars winning the decisive seventh game on Toronto ice, 5-2. Chicago would be hopelessly outmatched in the AVCO World Trophy Final against the Houston Aeros, though, who featured hockey legend Gordie Howe and his sons, Mark and Marty. The Aeros would sweep the series in four games, outscoring the Cougars 22-9. 1974-75 Season The Cougars finished third in the Eastern Division and twelfth overall with 61 points. They were tenth overall in goals for with 261 and twelfth overall in goals against with 261. Larry Mavety finished tenth in the league again with 150 penalty minutes but was traded to Toronto after playing 57 games with Chicago. Peter Pan Incident The Cougars made the playoffs for their only time in 1974. The initial series versus New England passed without incident, but the next series would be difficult in more ways than one: the International Amphitheatre had booked a production of Peter Pan, featuring former Olympic gymnast Cathy Rigby in the title role, and the Amphitheatre would not be available for the playoffs. Though the team did negotiate for use of Chicago Stadium, the home of the rival Chicago Black Hawks of the NHL, no dates were available due to the Black Hawks being involved in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The team briefly considered playing the matches at the Cleveland Arena before deciding to go to a suburban shopping center, Randhurst, where there was a public skating rink called the Randhurst Twin Ice Arena. Though the arena could only hold 2000 spectators, the team played its three home matches of the series in Randhurst. When the Cougars won their series versus Toronto, the Peter Pan show had moved on, and the Amphitheatre should have been available. However, for reasons still unclear, the staff had melted the ice surface. Worse, the Amphitheatre had a portable ice surface, and the copper pipes used to chill the ice were being uncovered and dismantled for the offseason. There was no choice but to return to Randhurst. The Cougars never quite recovered from the public relations disaster; one sports reporter had quipped, "The Cougars were beaten by the greatest lightweight of them all — Peter Pan." More NASL: Kicks, Lancers, Dynamos, Bays, Diplomats and more...more to come!!Posted Jul-03-08 14:39:31 PDT With the addition of several more vintage NASL team logos, we're now up over 1100 total listings and growing. A few of the teams we just added include: Baltimore Bays, Los Angeles Aztecs, Toronto Blizzard, Washington Diplomats, Denver Dynamos, St. Louis Stars, and Rochester Lancers. We also added new listings for the Minnesota Kicks. We're making a push to list all teams of the NASL by the end of this month, while adding more and more items for each team that we already have in our store. If you have any requests for teams or other defunct logos, feel free to write to us...we're always looking for suggestions. Turnaround times revisitedPosted Jun-24-08 21:02:11 PDT Updated Jun-24-08 21:02:37 PDT While we have
strived for quick turnaround times, recently we've experienced some
delays that have caused a few inconsistencies in our service record. We
do apologize for this and are taking steps to ensure the quickest
possible delivery on all our items. Thanks to all of our loyal
customers! New items are finally in the works, as we'll be adding listings for all currently available garments, then adding new teams and additional garments as well. Stay tuned as we're excited about all of the great apparel that we'll be adding in the next few months. |
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