New Hampshire/Cape Cod Freedoms Statistics and History

The New Hampshire Freedoms were a professional hockey team that started the 1978-79 season playing in New Hampshire. They had two home arenas, their primary arena being the JFK Coliseum in Manchester, with the Everett Arena in Concord serving as alternate. The team's president was Sandy L. Reiss, a former sports publicist who described himself as the youngest owner of a professional hockey franchise in history (although the team was actually owned by Reiss' father, Stanley Reiss, who operated Flag Textile Mills out of New York).

The NEHL was in its inaugural season and the Freedoms were a late entry as the league's fifth team, having only been granted their franchise on September 2, 1978, about two months before the season started. The team's coach and General Manager was John Cunniff, well-respected in the New England hockey scene, and it secured an affiliation with both the Boston Bruins and the Montreal Canadiens of the NHL. The Freedoms were the first professional hockey team to play in the state of New Hampshire, and that, coupled with their late start, was a problem. By early December the rumors of their movement were swirling - they had drawn just 208 fans to a recent home game.

On December 14, 1978, the Freedoms announced that they would relocate to the Cape Cod Coliseum in South Yarmouth, Massachusetts, due to attendance reasons and displeasure with the JFK Arena. The team renamed itself the Cape Cod Freedoms and finished out the season, but the mid-season relocation of the team did not lend itself to vastly improved attendance. Reports were that the Freedoms were averaging 1,500 per game in Cape Cod, so the team was again rumored to be moving.

Following the season, in April, Reiss announced that the Freedoms would be moved to Richmond, Virginia, and renamed the Richmond Rifles, although by some accounts the Freedoms franchise was abandoned and the league actually granted Reiss a brand new franchise.