Friday Flashback: Cincinnati Stingers

The Queen City once had a professional hockey team, but it wasn't in the National Hockey League (NHL) but in the rival World Hockey Association (WHA) from 1975-1979.

The Stingers achieved enough stability that they were the only one of the WHA's five expansion teams that lasted through to the end of the league, but they were left out of the merger between with the NHL in mid-1979.

The Stingers were an expansion team in the WHA for the 1975-76 season.  They finished a respectable 35-44-1 but failed to qualify for the playoffs in their first season.  They finished second in the Eastern Division in their second season and lost to the Indianapolis Racers in the quarterfinals.  After missing the playoffs the following season they lost to the New England Whalers in the quarterfinals in their final season.

The team played at Riverfront Coliseum which is now known as Heritage Bank Center.

Rick Dudley was one of the best players for the Stingers.  He scored 131 goals included 11 game winning goals.  NHL Hall of Famer Mark Messier played for the Stingers in 1978-79 and then went on to play for the Edmonton Oilers and New York Rangers.

Terry Slater was the first coach of the Stingers.  Jerry Rafter and Jacques Demers coached the team in 1977-78.  Demers went on to coach 14 seasons in the NHL and won the Stanley Cup with the Montreal Canadiens in 1993.  Floyd Smith was the last coach in 1978-79.

Cincinnati Stingers Seasons Review:

• 1975-76
• Record:  35-44-1
• 4th place in Eastern Division
• Playoffs - Did not qualify.
• 1976-77
• Record:  39-37-5
• 2nd place in Eastern Division
• Playoffs
• Lost to Indianapolis Racers 4 games to 0 in quarterfinals.
• 1977-78
• Record:  35-42-3
• 7th place
• Playoffs - Did not qualify.
• 1978-79
• Record:  33-41-6
• 5th place
• Playoffs
• Lost to New England Whalers 2 games to 1 in quarterfinals.

Cincinnati Stingers Fun Facts:

• The last Cincinnati Stingers player active in North American major professional hockey was Mark Messier, who retired in 2004.
• The Stingers averaged 7,048 per game which was better than the New England Whalers when merged with the NHL.
• The Stingers were the first professional team of long-time NHL stars Mike Gartner and Mike Liut, and the second pro team for Mark Messier, who scored one goal on a line with Robbie Ftorek, one of the league's top scorers.
• In a 1978 episode of WKRP in Cincinnati, a Stingers sticker can be seen on the wall of Les Nessman's "office" (actually an open area with black masking tape on the floor, signifying where the office's walls would be), as well as a Stingers pennant hanging on the wall regularly.
• Bernie Saunders (13 goals, 11 assists) was the Stingers’ leading scorer during the team’s final season in the minor league CHL. He is the brother of ESPN anchor John Saunders. He appeared in four games with the Quebec Nordiques during the 1979-80 season, becoming only the 5th black player to skate in the NHL.
• Owners Bill DeWitt Jr. and Brian Heekin originally sought to land an NHL expansion club for Cincinnati, failed, and then accepted the first expansion franchise awarded by the fledgling WHA as a fallback option in May 1973. The hockey team was mothballed for two years as Dewitt Jr. and Heekin worked to finance and build Riverfront Coliseum. The arena finally opened in September 1975 with the Stingers as its primary tenant.
• The Stingers returned as a minor league team in the Central Hockey League (CHL) in 1979 but disbanded 33 games into the season.