24 January 2009

A lot going on here

I got sucked into Newspaper Archive for a while, then Christmas, marriage, and expectancy kicked in (August baby, for those keeping track). So forgive me if it's been a while since I've updated this. To make up, I'll put the exhibition games I've seen (so far) played at the Veterans Memorial Field House (no scores yet, long-overdue for a microfilm appointment):

March 11, 1951: Miami Valley Bruins vs New York Rovers (these two would become the IHL's Troy Bruins and the EHL's Long Island Ducks)

March 25, 1951: MVB vs Hibbings Flyers

April 4, 1951: MVB vs Cleveland Barons

October 25, 1959: Toledo Mercurys vs Louisville Rebels

As late as 1966 there was talk of Huntington angling for another professional hockey franchise; I'm still not sure when the ice was disabled at the Field House.

While I have the Field House on my mind, congrats to them for being the home of Huntington's latest professional sports franchise, the West Virginia Wild in the Continental Indoor Football League. They're in a division with the Wheeling Wildcats, which I imagine will confuse the hell out of the out of town writers.

Lastly, while I don't need any help getting distracted, I'm contemplating another project not too far away from the scope of this work, but at the same time significantly larger--I've opened up a Newspaper Archive folder on Huntington's urban renewal projects--the Superblock, the Civic Arena, and everything else that sprouted, that should have sprouted, and all the dram-a surrounding it. I think it might make for a good grad school project whenever I cross that bridge...