Thanks for the link.
As soon as you mentioned Indiana Racers I was thinking Wayne Gretzky. But weren't they called "Indianapolis Racers"? Not sure, but I think they played in the Market Square Arena, same as the basketball Pacers.
Yes, I realize now that I was mixing the name of the WHA team with the current USHL club in Indy ("Indiana Ice"). Yes, the Racers and Pacers both played at MSA in downtown Indy, but before its construction the Pacers played at the Fairgrounds Coliseum (were I also watched a number of the ABA games). I should have looked behind me when I typed that as I still have a game used Racers puck on the bookshelf that I got at one of their games (from an ice worker at an intermission):
Years later, I saw an Indy minor league team (Ice?) play at some dilapidated barn-like arena at the Indiana Fairgrounds.
That would be the "Pepsi Coliseum". It's a WPA-era structure, but I believe in recent years it's been cared for. It's still used for a lot of events and is now the current home of the Indiana Ice USHL team.
Ironically, the "Indianapolis Racers" (with the same logo) are still around... It's a travel hockey team based out of Fishers just outside of Indy. My younger son's played against them a couple of times.
I loved the old World Hockey Association, as bush league as it could be at times.
The Ft. Wayne Komets have been around for 60 or more years, I believe. One of the most stable minor league teams ever. Saw a game there in the early 1990s.
Yes, they've been very stable... but the leagues they've been in haven't been so lucky. After the original IHL collapsed after the NHL pulled their affiliations, they joined the UHL. That unaffiliated league did well until it all-but imploded in 2007. The Franke Family (owners of the Komets) then allowed the UHL to use the IHL's name (they purchased all of the IHL's assets when it went out of business) to re-brand itself. But pratically, the Komets were the league (in terms of strength, results, and attendance) and some people referred to the "new" IHL as the "FWHL". That ended when the remaining handful of IHL teams were "merged" with the CHL in 2010. It's worth noting that only the Original Six NHL teams, and the AHL's Hersey Bears have a longer track record of playing in the same city.
I was introduced to hockey with something called the "Jersey Devils" (NOT the current NHL team). It was in the early 1970s in the old Eastern Hockey League, as bush of a league as there ever was. The movie "Slapshot" wasn't much of an exaggeration of that league.
Jim
Speaking of "Slap Shot", I stumbled into a bit of hockey/movie history a few years when I won a 1974 Kalamazoo Wings jersey on eBay. After I bought it, someone pointed out to me that it was worn by Ned Dowd (who played 17 games with Kalamazoo its first season). Dowd is known by hockey buffs more by his screen name: "Ogie Ogilthorpe". Dowd's sister, Nancy, was also the one that wrote the screenplay for the classic movie. A lot of the player locker room/bus banter in the film was taken from audio recordings that her brother made on buses and locker rooms while playing in the minors.
Photo from K-Wings program:
!
Good for you. 
