<v 1>Traditions can be a funny thing.</v> Some are passed down from generation to generation.

Grandfather grandfather's a grandson.

Some get so entwined within the DNA of who we subconsciously are.

We come to accept that it is a custom that's always been there, as if it has always been deep in our bones, almost like breathing.

It is what we do.

So at some point, it came to pass for many that when the orange and reds of the trees begin to show in the crisp smell of winter burns in the air, the season of hockey has arrived.

In a community that closely associates itself with the lake it resides next to and long winters, folks might be surprised that we were not quick to adopt a sport played on ice.

It was only a matter of time before Canada's greatest export would find a home here in the gem city.

And it all started at the Erie Zoo?

<v 2>This place is the birthplace of hockey in Erie County.</v> John Cochrane was the chair of the Erie Zoological Society.

He was really driving force behind a lot of the things that happened early in the zoo's history.

The zoo was taken over by the Zoological Society in 1962, and shortly thereafter, they were running the zoo and Labor Day came and nobody was there.

They needed to find a source of winter revenue.

By Christmas of that year, Mr.

John Cochran, uh, had a temporary ice sheet set up outside, basically in the location we are at the next year.

This facility was built and, uh, hockey took off from there.

It's actually the first thing the zoo did when it took over.

It didn't build an animal exhibit, it didn't do any of that.

It built an ice arena.

This building was the home to the Erie Lions, and it was something special.

<v 3>First of all, the Erie Lions are the ones responsible for hockey.</v> And Erie semi-pro team, uh, organized by a couple of the people were on the board of directors at the Erie Zoo.

<v 2>And there's a lot of people that have a lot of memories of the old Erie Lions.</v> Uh, and of course, they got their name from the lions at the zoo.

<v 3>They became so popular and they were winning so many games.</v> The fire marshals would come into Glenwood and say, you know, "You can't have this many people in here."

And that sparked the interest of, uh, county commissioners.

And so they built the Erie County Fieldhouse with the Erie Lions as their main tenant.

After only one year of the Erie Lions popularity, it caught the attention of a team from Long Island, New York called the, uh, Long Island Cougars, I believe, which was owned by Ben Casper, the original owner of the Erie Blades.

And he decided to move the team to Erie, Pennsylvania.

And after a couple years here, they decided that the team needed local ownership.

So, uh, he partnered with then Dr.

Caruso to be the majority owner, uh, and Ben Casper to be the minority owner.

<v 2>The community was in a tough spot.

You know, this is 1979, 80,</v> those types of years.

And, um, our country in general was in, in some tough financial conditions.

And it was something to do, something to take pride in.

Um, and it was relatively inexpensive, uh, for, so it was relatively cheap family entertainment.

<v 1>The year was 1975.</v> The war in Vietnam was coming to a complicated ending with the evacuation of Saigon.

The VHS tape was introduced by JVC, and the blockbuster Jaws had people thinking twice about swimming at the beach.

America was in the slog of a recession that was impacting every corner of the country.

With the US unemployment hovering near a double digit percentile.

The city and state were looking for any means to turn a profit.

A dollar game to try to boost Pennsylvania's then struggling lottery system was introduced.

Plans to drill gas from Lake Erie was presented and underway in order to pay for state parks like Presque Isle.

And people were at odds over whether to divide Perry Square by putting a street through the center of the park.

Erie was in need of something to rally around when the Blades came to town.

Minor league hockey wasn't the polished product we come to know today.

The North American Hockey League was a DIY organization that was a coalition of small blue collar cities that lacked hockey pedigree, but made up for it in grit, tenacity, and <v 2>booze.</v> The Erie County Fieldhouse came about because of the popularity of the Erie Lions.

<v 4>The city was so slow in trying to create a civic center for itself.</v> So they just put up a pole barn, dressed it up, and put in a bunch of bleachers and seats.

And pretty soon we had, you know, a wonderful facility for concerts and hockey games.

<v 5>The facility was, uh, was relatively small by arena standards.

Uh,</v> it was 5,200 for concerts.

And I think the, the, the capacity for, uh, for hockey was in the four thousands.

<v 6>I'd grown up playing junior hockey in all these cathedrals</v> in Canada.

It was a little different than what I expected.

<v 2>It was a barn.

It wasn't anything fancy, but it sure served its purpose.</v> <v 6>They knew what they were doing.

The ice was always good there.

The ice was</v> <v 7>pretty much top five ice surfaces that I played on,</v> uh, very, very, very good ice surface.

Very good.

<v 5>The east end of the arena had, uh, bleachers behind the goal without any nets.</v> And we used to always kid and hear people talk about it being the suicide seats.

And you had to pay attention because, uh, that puck could come up over the glass and you better move quickly to get the heck out of the way.

<v 3>And they loved that because, you know, they'd catch 10 pucks</v> <v 5>a game because of, of the structure of the place.

It got pretty</v> <v 7>loud.

It was very, very loud.</v> They were right behind the plexiglass.

It was really, really close to you, and you could hear everything they say.

And not to us.

People loved the Blades.

They were not after us.

However, the other team got the full end of it.

And that time it was quite funny.

But we felt in the locker room, once we step outta the locker room, we brought that energy on the ice and it just blew over to the, uh, to the fans.

And they felt it.

<v 8>And now you welcome your Erie Blades.</v> <v 7>You have to be there.

If you're talking to anyone that is, you know,</v> during our time, they will say just that.

<v 4>This is a great moment for Erie.</v> The love affair between the Erie Blades and the Erie sports fans was instant.

And, uh, being packed into the old Erie County Fieldhouse made it extra special.

<v 1>The rink leader of the Blades was an afro-sporting, hardnosed ex-player,</v> Nick Polano.

While not exactly celebrated as a master of the X's and O's, Nick had a knack for spotting talent and knowing how the pieces on the ice could fit together to make a mean, lean, ice skating machine.

<v 4>He was, uh, former Detroit Red Wings coach.

He, uh,</v> knew the game backwards and forwards.

He had the respect of players.

He was a player.

<v 7>He knew how to relate to us.

He knew what we were going through.

And,</v> and so as, as a man, he, he understood all of us.

<v 6>He was a hockey guy.

We would try to like, pull stuff on him or get away.</v> He'd already done it.

So we couldn't do that.

And once we figured that out, we respected that.

Cuz you know, he, he had a lot of stitches and he was a tough guy playing the game.

So you respect a guy that's been around the game that <v 3>day.

in my opinion, Nick was an NHL coach coaching in the minor leagues.</v> He had, he had had an edge on it.

He studied every team, every player he knew who we had to put pressure on to kill that team.

He was just very hockey knowledgeable.

Hockey was his life.

<v 7>Putting guys together, maintaining that chemistry, that's where it was very,</v> very strong.

It starts in locker room.

You don't just go on the ice and just play and, and win the game.

It starts way be be before that.

So if your locker room has problems, you're gonna have problems on, on, on, on the field, on the ice, or on the bench.

And he was very careful of that, that he maintained that in the locker room.

So, as for, for, for managing the players and putting the group together and maintaining the group, he was very good.

<v 2>Nick Polano was an interesting character.

Um, I, I didn't see him personally,</v> but you could sure watch 'm from the bench.

And, um, he was, uh, uh, an interesting and excitable guy.

<v 5>Mike Caron was carrying a whole bunch of sticks off the ice.

And Nick Polano,</v> uh, uh, was terribly upset with the officiating or the conduct of the game.

And he went over and just ripped a bunch of sticks out of Mike Caron's hands.

So they spilled all over the ice and he turns and says, "That ought to sell a few tickets for tomorrow night."

<v 3>Every year you have to have a rival.

And a lot of times with, uh,</v> some of the teams, our, our rival was because of the other coach, uh, Muzz MacPherson.

He coached the Richmond Rifles and, uh, he was, uh, Wayne Gretzky's coach, and he was Paul Mancini's coach when Mancini played with Gretzky in junior hockey.

And, uh, so he, he was our nemesis then.

Rick Dudley, he was a head coach of one of the teams, uh, the Thunderbirds.

And he was our, he, the fans would get together, they'd sit behind his bench, call him "poodle head" cuz he had a perm and they'd chant "poodle head, poodle head."

But when they came to town, it wasn't any of their players.

The fans were coming, they were coming to see the coach cuz he would always interact.

Nick knew how to get the fans going and he knew how to make money in hockey.

Nick, he went on to become a general manager in National Hockey League.

<v 6>As we started winning and, and people started coming, they,</v> they gravitated towards us.

<v 5>14 Val James.</v> <v 2>When I was a young kid watching the games, you know, they were,</v> they were big celebrities because we really didn't have any other pro sport of that type in town.

And so it was the only game in town.

<v 5>The Erie Blades back in the day really got to know the community.

Um,</v> if you were a fan, you could meet them out at bars and restaurants and, you know, they were very approachable.

Um, and that I think that, that kinship and, uh, friendships that developed really helped continue to sell tickets and, and make them successful.

<v 3>The Blades became a part of the community very quickly and it just</v> carried over from year to year.

Our, our fans or booster club or whoever, season ticket holders would invite certain guys over their house for Sunday dinner, you know, whenever we didn't have a game.

And they would go.

That, that doesn't happen in a lot of cities.

<v 7>The whole team were always, always all together, all the time.</v> <v 6>After the game, we, we'd go to a disco lounge,</v> it was called Bananas Lounge Hangout.

And of course all the fans went there too.

<v 7>Any place we went to, me, two of my teammates, it,</v> it was the town was definitely behind, behind the, the Blades.

<v 3>They became friends with all the business owners in town,</v> which was smart on their part because they never had to pay for a drink or a meal when they went to the Plymouth Tavern or the Rathskeller or the Holiday Inn South or wherever it was.

I remember going to Brad Rhiness's apartment one day.

I noticed a stack from the floor up about this high of Pizza Hut pans that they made the deep dish pizza in.

He'd get one, they'd give him the whole pan and he'd take the pan home cuz he'd say, he's gonna reheat it in the oven and I'll bring 'em back.

And he had 20 of them stacked up in the corner of his room.

We had one player who had a full set of table and chairs from a Pizza Hut in his apartment, including the checkered tablecloth.

Swear to God happened.

But that's how they were, uh, that's how they were dealt with in this town.

They, they, they could have whatever they want and do whatever they want, and they appreciated it.

They just didn't take advantage of it.

They appreciated it.

A lot of 'em, the rookies were making 250 bucks a week, but they were treated like royalty whenever they went on the town after they won that first year.

<v 1>In 1980,</v> relations between the USSR and America were colder than the ice They skated on at the Fieldhouse.

But somehow, some way, it was in the heart of the Cold War that Erie found itself playing host to the celebrated and revered Russian national hockey team.

This scrimmage between David and Goliath was the biggest sporting event in Erie's history.

And for one moment of time, Erie found itself at Center Ice and International Hockey.

<v 3>Nick, uh, got word from somebody with the United States Olympic Committee and,</v> uh, just happened to mention to Nick about the team needing to get some games in prior to the Olympics.

And we were one of the best minor league teams in the country.

The night before they arrived is when I found out we were playing the Russians.

I had no clue it was that secret.

<v 5>A lot of folks don't realize that that team was in Erie for a full week prior</v> to that game.

And this was shortly, uh, you know, right around the time that, uh, you know, Afghanistan was invaded by Russia.

It was talk of a boycott of the Olympics.

It was a very, uh, challenging time because of the, the political strife.

<v 3>They weren't really welcomed in the United States.</v> No one cared that they were hockey players, uh, and had nothing to do with the government after it got out.

There were, uh, city councilmen and other dignitaries who wanted to shut the game down.

But the game went on and we sold out in 45 minutes.

<v 6>It was a big deal to have them coming here.

Um,</v> I don't how Nick ever pulled <v 3>that off.</v> I brought an article calling me the babysitter of the Russian hockey team.

And that's what I did.

You know, if they wanted to go somewhere, uh, I had to call the state police, the Erie police, and the Millcreek Police if they were going from Millcreek to, uh, say see a movie in, in the city on Pittsburgh Avenue.

And so he had to call the theater manager to make sure he would allow them to come, cause a lot of people didn't want the Russians around.

So he had to make sure that, uh, it was a G movie.

Uh, that's what they requested.

And I remember thinking to myself, these guys are gonna love Bambi.

You know, &lt;laugh&gt;, I mean, they're hockey players.

Why would they wanna see a G movie?

<v 2>The Russian hockey team was probably the best team on the planet.</v> Uh, some of the players they had, uh, were just amazing and, and would've been NHL stars had they been allowed to do that.

<v 5>If one of them had something, they all had them.</v> They were literally like robots.

They would do triple sessions.

They would, uh, uh, do uh, three workouts a day.

They would eat five times a day.

They would shower once a week.

<v 3>They actually drank hot tea in between periods.</v> So that's a little Russian secret.

<v 2>To some degree, there was a thought of, holy cow,</v> these guys are gonna smoke the Blades &lt;laugh&gt; because they're so good.

But just the opportunity to get to see them was just something special that very few communities probably got to do.

<v 4>The town came out like it had never come out before.</v> I think 4,500 or more jammed into the Fieldhouse.

<v 5>It was a very patriotic audience.

Uh,</v> everybody was issued American flags, uh, and certainly showed their patriotism and love of America to the Russian team's sold out crowd.

We did lose nine to nothing.

We played hard, but they were just vastly superior.

<v 3>They were pretty skeptical of, you know, engaging with Americans.</v> There was no like fan interaction with them.

They didn't come out after the game.

Even Victor Tikhonov, the head coach, did not engage with Nick Polano, wouldn't talk to Nick after the game.

<v 5>The crowd, they were proud of Erie, you know, uh, ACHL team, uh,</v> giving it their best in playing hard and losing in a valiant effort.

And I think that the uh, uh, Erie hockey fans also, too, respected the talent of the Soviet team, of course, purportedly the greatest hockey team of all time.

<v 1>The Soviets never fully found their footing on the ice that year,</v> making them ripe for the upset that would become known as the Miracle on Ice.

The Blades brought the same fervor and panache they showed their foreign comrades to their league games.

And the results for three years made Erie a title town.

<v 3>But a lot of people don't know is we were supplied with players from Quebec</v> Nordiques, uh, New York Islanders.

Nick was pretty good friends with a, uh, a guy by the name of Gilles Leger from Quebec.

He was a scout, I believe.

And, uh, Gilles would always confer with Nick, what do you need down there?

And we, we got a couple of left wingers we'd like to send you.

When an NHL team assigned players to you, you're not responsible for their salary.

You didn't sign 'em to that contract, but they're sending him here to keep him in shape for when they need him.

And, uh, so you only pay a portion of his salary.

And we had a lot more of those players than the other teams did.

And that's why we won.

We had, you know, we had <v 5>American, American Hockey League players playing in an Eastern hockey league.</v> <v 6>A lot of us were, were very close in age.</v> I was the one of the young players at 20.

And um, you know, Pierre, Pierre was 21.

Danny Poulin was 21.

We had a few older guys.

Uh, Dennis Abgrall was 29 or 30, Dave Fortier was probably 31, 32.

And you know, the year before I come there, he's playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

And now I'm sitting beside him in the dressing room and the first game I played, I remember looking over and I'm like, "You're Dave Fortier?"

He goes, "Yeah."

"What the hell are you doing here?"

And he goes, "I was gonna ask you the same thing.

You're Paul Mancini, right?"

I'm like, "Yeah."

Neither one of us had an answer for why we were there.

But we were.

<v 5>We had, uh, skilled players.

We had tough players.

Uh, you know,</v> we had good goalies.

Um, you know, Valmore James, Val James was, uh, tough as nails.

I'll, I'll never forget meeting him and shaking his hand.

And I thought I was shaking somebody that was wearing a a baseball mitt, his hands were so large.

Um, but very colorful, colorful players.

Pierre Aubry and Louis Sleigher.

And Nick, I think, had the wisdom to know that he needed some sharpshooters, some scorers, some skaters, and some tough guys.

And was able to assemble a team that, uh, uh, was able to play with all of those elements.

And uh, um, it made it a lot of fun to, uh, to watch.

Of course, um, you know, the fans love winners and they, uh, they won a lot of games.

<v 1>From 1979 to 1981,</v> the only thing shining brighter than those disco balls were the championship trophies the Blades collected back to back to back.

<v 6>Winning the first championship and the</v> feeling you have of winning that.

Um, cuz we had to fight back.

We were down 3-1 and, uh, people counted us out and we didn't back down the first year.

Hampton was the big rival and that's who we ended up playing in the, in the finals.

It was about Christmas time when we had all the pieces together in minor league hockey.

It's a filter down effect from, from the NHL and it goes through the system and, and they're, we ended up with some very, very good hockey players here playing.

<v 7>It was great to walk into the locker room and I felt it.</v> The whole team was phenomenal.

We headed back to Hampton for the, uh, the sixth game.

So now we have to win that game to make it tie 3-3.

<v 6>I can remember it was Good Friday and they had the parade route</v> on the front page of their paper for the next day.

And we beat 'em and came back on a flight and there was like 3000 people waiting for us at the airport at midnight.

<v 7>Come back into the field house to the famous seventh game</v> Fog City that people still talk about it today.

Uh, it was a warm day out, it was very cold on the inside.

It was fog everywhere.

And after 10, 15 minutes we have have to skate around to get the fog to uh, uh, to release up.

And it was a phenomenal game.

And, uh, and we won the championship.

<v 3>The fans became so used to winning, that the Blades were gonna win,</v> that a lot of 'em didn't show up for games cuz they, ah, I can miss this one.

They're gonna win anyway.

They're playing Utica or whoever.

So attendance starting to drop, I mean, how do you win at that point?

I think it was two of three championships and, uh, and the attendance goes down.

And the reason that we were being told by the fans was, well, we didn't come because, you know, we knew you guys were gonna win.

<v 5>Yeah.

When the team, uh, moved from, uh, the Fieldhouse to,</v> uh, to the new downtown arena, it was bittersweet.

I mean, there were so many memories of the Erie County Fieldhouse, but you know, that facility was so substandard.

<v 2>As much as people loved the Fieldhouse, it was a field house, &lt;laugh&gt;,</v> it was a barn.

Um, and so this big bright new shiny arena downtown, uh, that was pretty exciting stuff.

<v 6>It was completely different than what we were used to playing in,</v> you know, it was a nice building.

The, the ice wasn't as good there.

<v 5>Uh, the, the arena was much more conducive to the patron experience.</v> It had much better locker room facilities for the players, training facility for the players.

It took a readjustment, I think that some of the old school fans, you know, liked the old experience better, but moving it downtown, um, opened up hockey and exposed hockey to a whole new set of people that, uh, never had previously attended a game.

So I think it expanded the universe, uh, somewhat and, uh, broadened the market appeal by being downtown, much closer, much more accessible.

Um, but, um, you know, there's those purists that would I'm sure say, "I wish we were at the Fieldhouse because it was so much more fun."

<v 3>We thought it would be much better than it was.

Uh, that's,</v> but we anticipated that we might not be making the money attendance-wise, and, and it didn't happen.

We know we didn't fill that building.

That's why we got compensated by Mayor Tullio.

Uh, and we were given the rights to the concessions.

So Dr.

Caruso owned the concessions as long as he owned the hockey team, which we, we sold all the popcorn and beer and all that stuff, which helped us because we weren't making it on ticket sales in that building.

<v 5>It was good to be able to have a better facility, but, you know,</v> it was the end of an era, which always, uh, you know, which made it bittersweet.

<v 1>After three titles and twice being named the Eastern Hockey League's Coach of the</v> Year, Polano got called up to the big show.

He would coach the Detroit Red Wings from 1982 to 1985.

But his impact on the game may have been bigger than just winning the Stanley Cup.

Detroit became the landing spot for players playing behind the Iron Curtain.

Nick, would go on to scout some of the greatest hockey players and help them defect to America.

Without Polano, the NHL would be devoid of some of the greats like Petr Klima, Slava Kozlov, and most notably Sergei Fedorov.

<v 3>It wasn't the same after Nick left.

Um, you know,</v> we didn't have anybody in our organization that had NHL connections like Nick had, uh, scouts that wanted to send players here.

Uh, because if you were sending a player, you want to know who's gonna be coaching him.

You want to know that that guy represents your style of hockey.

And, uh, Nick was that guy.

A lot of, lot of people respected Nick that were in the National Hockey League.

<v 1>After the glory years and the celebrations became a foggy memory,</v> the Blades would move on to Baltimore at the start of the 1982 to 83 season and were renamed the Baltimore Skipjacks.

But Erie never gave up the ghost of hockey; from the hyper-aggressive style of the Erie Panthers to the speed and finesse of the Otters, this sport has become a fixture of the city sports scene.

From opening day to the Thanksgiving game, Erie has found itself with something it may have never expected: a tradition.

And the funny thing is, it all started with hockey at the zoo.

<v 6>There probably wouldn't be,</v> an Erie Otters if there wasn't an Erie Blades.

And we didn't have the success that we had and we didn't bring in that fan base that just loves to go to the games.

Blades started this and we won and winning cures a lot of other things.

So we, we were a winning team.

We, we had a lot of fun.

We, we, we were engaged in the community.

A bunch of us are still here.

And that, that legacy continues.

<v 4>Some players over the years went on to, uh, uh,</v> you know, very interesting jobs, you know, uh, in both in coaching and, uh, involved in the hockey program, <v 7>and uh transfer from being a professional athlete to something.</v> I would say more important, uh, being, being, being a fa-, being a father and a family man and, and contributing to, uh, to the community.

<v 2>As some of them stayed here over the years, they became part of our community.</v> But there's some, a lot of people still remember 'em as Erie Blades.

<v 3>They all remember their time in Erie.</v> They may not remember some of the other cities they've played in.

Uh, some of them they'd rather forget, but I think Erie had a, a soft spot in every one of their hearts because of the way they were treated while they were here.

They were treated like family by the fans, by the other players, by the ownership.

It's amazing to me the way we still call each other and see each other.

Uh, and basically like no time has elapsed, you know, it's just, it happened yesterday and, uh, they remember everything about what went on.

<v 4>They set the town on fire.

They, this was a fun, fun outfit.</v>