The Eastern Hockey League was a hockey league that operated for nearly forty years, from 1933 until 1973. Although the league was officially classified as an amateur league, this causes people to believe that the brand of hockey was somehow different or inferior than so-called professional leagues. EHL players were both paid to play hockey and were recruited to play for their various teams - being classified as amateur simply meant that the league played under the rules and governance of the Amateur Hockey Association of the United States and the players were thus outside of the reach and control of the National Hockey League and its affiliated leagues.
The EHL was formed by Tom Lockhart on December 17, 1933 as the Eastern Amateur Hockey League.
The EHL went on hiatus for the 1948-49 season when the New York Rovers and Boston Olympics withdrew. Both teams had been playing in both the EHL and the Quebec Senior Hockey League, and they found the dual schedules to be... [Click for more] too intense. Additionally, the American Bowling Congress took over the Atlantic City Auditorium for four months, causing the Sea Gulls to drop out of the league.
The league came back in 1949-50, adding a western division which was made up of two teams that had played in the IHL - the Milwaukee Clarks and Toledo Buckeyes - and two new teams, the Grand Rapids Rockets and the Cleveland Knights. The eastern division was identical to the lineup two years prior, with the New York Rovers, Atlantic City Sea Gulls, Baltimore Clippers, and Boston Olympics. On December 4, 1949, both Baltimore and Cleveland folded.
The league was again weakened following the 1951-52 season when two teams - the Philadelphia Falcons and Washington Lions - withdrew mid-season due to poor attendance. Following that season the Boston Olympics transferred their franchise to Washington DC; the New York Rovers transferred to Troy NY after the New York Knickerbockers basketball team took over too many dates at Madison Square Garden; and the Atlantic City Sea Gulls were forced to withdraw due to too many dates booked for conventions at their home rink, the Atlantic City Convention Center.
When the Springfield Indians announced in July that they would seek admission in the Quebec Hockey League, that dealt the EHL a critical blow, leaving it with just four teams. A month later the Johnstown Jets applied for admission in the International Hockey League, leaving the EHL with too few teams with which to operate. The EHL suspended operations for the 1953-54 season.
Tom Lockhart worked to resurrect the league. It returned for the 1954-55 season with a new lineup of cities. Washington and New Haven (now the Blades) returned, joined by the Baltimore Clippers and two associate teams, the Clinton Comets and the Worcester Warriors. The latter two teams played a partial league schedule. The Worcester team was made up entirely of U.S. trained hockey players, mostly ex-collegiate players.
Tom Lockhart retired as president at the end of the 1971-72 season. His successor was Norm MacLean; he would hold the title for just a single season. In 1972-73 it was apparent that the league was quickly unraveling. The league restructured itself for its final season, with Norm MacLean replacing the 82-year old Lockhart. The league underwent a technical status change by eliminating their amateur requirement for players. Although EHL players had always been paid, they were required to register with the Amateur Hockey Association of the United States to play in the league. This was basically a mechanism to prevent the players from easily moving into the professional leagues.
In the 1972-73 season, the New England Blades were an ill-formed venture of the owner of the New Haven Blades, Nathan Podoloff. Podoloff was forced to relocate from New Haven, Connecticut when the New Haven Nighthawks of the American Hockey League were formed in that city. He chose to move to West Springfield, Massachusetts, to play in the Coliseum at the Eastern States fairgrounds. The Coliseum had been the home of the Springfield Indians/Kings for many years, but the Kings had relocated across the river to play at the recently opened Springfield Civic Center. Although many Kings fans were unhappy about their team moving to the downtown, that did not translate into support for the Blades, and the Blades folded after just 24 games.
By the end of the season, the Long Island Ducks and the Jersey Devils were similarly bankrupt.
On May 1, 1973, four southern teams announced that they would leave the EHL; they had become dissatisfied with the northern teams, who they only played infrequently due to travel expenses. In a near-unanimous vote, the EHL governors voted to dissolve the league and form both the Southern Hockey League and the North American Hockey League for the 1973-74 season.