Prior to the 1980’s the state’s only claim to a major-league franchise were the New Jersey Knights (right), a WHA team that relocated for part of the 1973-74 season from New York to Cherry Hill.
The ’73–’74 season marked the sophomore year for the World Hockey Association, the rag-tag rival to the NHL. Year One had been a disaster for the New York Raiders, whose owners walked away from the club at midseason, forcing the league to assume control of the team. The club took the ice the following year with a new owner (Ralph Brent) and a new name (Golden Blades). Brent actually made the players wear white skates with golden blades.
Twenty games into the 1973–74 campaign, however, Brent gave up on the Blades. The WHA took control again and moved the team out of Madison Square Garden, which had been charging astronomical rent…to Cherry Hill! Player-coach Harry Howell, a star defenseman for the Rangers in the 1950s and 1960s, made the players paint their skates black and the team was renamed the Knights. Howell didn’t have to worry about the uniforms—the Garden confiscated them when the team broke its lease. They took the old Raiders uniforms out of mothballs and sewed a new logo on the fronts.
The minor-league team that had previously called the Cherry Hill Arena home had gone out of business the previous spring. They were the New Jersey Devils of the Eastern League. The rink was famous for its slight north-south slope. This gave the team an advantage, because they were able to skate downhill for two periods and only uphill for one. Another unusual feature was a total lack of plexiglass protection for the crowd. There was chicken wire in the corners and behind the goals and nothing above the boards between the blue lines.
There was plenty of talent on the New Jersey Knights. Center Andre Lacroix led the WHA with 80 assists and also led the club with 31 goals. Winger Wayne Rovers netted 30 and would go on to become one of the WHA’s better goal-scorers. Kevin Morrison, a rookie defenseman, was the Knights’ enforcer. He would go on to play in two WHA All-Star Games. Norm Ferguson was on the roster—in 1969, he was runner-up to Danny Grant for the Calder Trophy. Howell, age 41, contributed 3 goals and 23 assists.
The Knights played winning hockey until the final two weeks, going 26–24–2 as New Jersey’s WHA representative before dropping their final six games. After the season, the team was purchased by a third ownership group and became the San Diego Mariners. Ray Kroc eventually bought the team, and then sold it to a group that wanted to establish big-league hockey in Florida. That deal fell through and the Raiders-Blades-Knights-Mariners franchise blipped out of existence in 1978.