Digging one tunnel, finding a new one (in more ways than one!)

The first three hockey games played at the Veterans Memorial Fieldhouse were all played with the Miami Valley Bruins in 1951. Based in Troy, OH, at that time they were an independent team; they would be rechristened the Troy Bruins for the 1951-52 season and were admitted into the IHL that season.

13 March 1951: Miami Valley Bruins 6, New York Rovers 4 (exhibition)
27 March 1951: Miami Valley Bruins 4, Hibbings Flyers 3 (OT) (semifinal of the National Independent Open Tournament; this would actually set up a rematch with the Rovers in the final of that tournament)
4 April 1951: Cleveland Barons 7, Miami Valley Bruins 3

Attendance was about 1500 for these games, and there were supposed to be more exhibition games played the next season, but so far no luck looking. (While looking this up, I noticed that there is a new incarnation of the Troy Bruins, in the UJHL independent junior league, which will be playing at Hobart Arena next season.)

Fast-forward to 1959, when the Toledo Mercurys found themselves booked out of half a season. Testing the waters in various temporary locales, they played an exhibition match against Huntington's old team, the Louisville Rebels, on 25 October (a 2-2 tie). Organized by Walter Arnold and Luigi Narcise--the same Narcise who tried to buy the Hornets a couple years earlier--they drew 2000 for the game, enough to warrant further consideration by the Mercurys.

While they unexpectedly elected to play some games in St. Louis (and this season they are referred to in the record books as the Toledo-St. Louis Mercurys), as of late December 1959 (when I stopped microfilming this afternoon), the Mercurys made an overture to Arnold and Narcise to play their February-March schedule in Huntington. As the Huntington Advertiser pointed out, however, this would have been problematic due to the coinciding Golden Gloves boxing tournament and West Virginia Catholic High School Basketball Tournament--half the dates would have to have been rescheduled.

Of most interest on my end of things, however, is--and this is not at all unexpected--Arnold and Narcise were using the Toledo match(es?) as a means to test the waters for an IHL expansion franchise in 1960-61. They had even considered buying the star-crossed Denver Mavericks team, but the combination of schedule mismatches and severe financial difficulties ultimately discouraged them (the team ultimately ended up in Minneapolis).

Help me gang--were there any other games, either with Troy or Toledo (or any other teams for that matter)? And whatever became of Arnold and Narcise's expansion efforts?