Smart phones…tiny computers in your pocket that wield all sorts of power. Some good, some bad, and some fun.
It’s easy to go down a rabbit hole with one of these and a sleepless night. Thankfully for me, I didn’t travel down one of useless social media memes/GIFs and videos last night when I couldn’t sleep.
Instead, I found myself reading about defunct hockey teams. In particular: The Tropical Hockey League, aka the “Grapefruit League.”
Maybe you’re familiar with it, maybe you’re not. However, as Florida Panthers fans, it should be of particular importance and interest to us.
You can read in good detail about it on the
Wikipedia Page, but in a nutshell, it was the first attempt to establish pro hockey in Florida/the southern United States.
I would have guessed this attempt came in the 1960’s, or more realistically the 1970’s.
Nope…
The THL was born in 1938 and lasted one year before ceasing operations in 1939!
At its core, the league was a good idea and far ahead of its time in terms of expanding the game to non-traditional markets.
They established four teams (listed below) and based them all in Miami, where they played out of the Miami Coliseum in Coral Gables.
- The Miami Clippers
- Miami Beach Pirates
- The Coral Gables Seminoles
- The Havana Tropicals
* Interesting to note is that the Wiki article cites The Havana Tropicals was designed with the idea in mind to attract the Cuban American fanbase. There was also plans to expand to Jacksonville and the Bahamas.
The idea for the league was solid: Take advantage of the large “snowbird” population from up North — all the way into Canada — who would come to the Miami area to escape the winter time.
A good thought that just didn’t catch on.
Think about hockey as a whole. Up until the last 10-20ish years, it was certainly the most niche sport of the big four: MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL.
It has always been kind of a tough game to sell because not a lot of people play it growing up. It requires a lot more to get involved in, versus picking up a baseball, basketball, football, what have you, and playing with some friends outside, in organized leagues, for your school, etc…
Hockey has traditionally just been be less accessible for people. And for non-traditional hockey markets where it never gets cold enough to freeze a pond? Forgetaboutit.
So, for these guys to not only have the vision, but the determination to get the league from paper to an actual on-ice product, in 1938 no less, is pretty amazing.
As the article states:
”Because it was not affiliated with the Amateur Hockey Association of the United States, founded the year before as a new governing body for ice hockey in the United States, the THL struggled to recruit top-tier talent. W. G. Hardy, then-president of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (and future president of the IIHF), warned Canadians against signing contracts with the Tropical Hockey League.[6] Nevertheless, the THL's players, with just three exceptions, were all Canadians recruited from camps in Port Colborne, Ontario and Winnipeg, Manitoba.[7] The Seminoles, having recruited much of their roster from Western Canada, developed an on-ice rivalry with the other three teams, which were predominantly eastern Canadian.[1]
One notable figure was Magnus "Mike" Goodman, a former member of the Winnipeg Falcons who won the gold medal in hockey for Canada in the 1920 Summer Olympics; he served the Seminoles as player-coach.[7] Other teams sought out similar talent for their manager positions; the Pirates signed Stan Jackson, a former winger for the Boston Bruins and Toronto St. Pats, while the Clippers hired Harold "Bullet Joe" Simpson, former manager of the National Hockey League's New York Americans and future Hockey Hall of Famer.[8] The Clippers also signed defensemen Bob Dill, who would go on to play with the New York Rangers, and Frank Mailley, who played one game for the Montreal Canadiens.“
Every expansion team/league has tons of obstacles and struggles to overcome, so no surprises here that the unsupported THL evaporated quickly in 1939.
But the short-lived Grapefruit League wasn’t done in vain. The THL was the first attempt at hockey in the South, particularly targeting Florida, that opened the door to other attempts.
As we see from the article:
“The Tropical Hockey League experiment did little to popularize hockey in the South.[3] After 1941, there would be no further attempt to establish professional hockey in the region until 1956, when the Eastern Hockey League placed the Charlotte Clippers, later the Charlotte Checkers, in Charlotte, North Carolina.[3] Florida did not get another hockey team until the Jacksonville Rockets joined the EHL in 1964.[17] From 1992 to 1995 there was another minor hockey league based in Florida, the Sunshine Hockey League.[18] Major league hockey did not expand into the South until the 1970s, with the NHL's Atlanta Flames and the World Hockey Association's Houston Aeros (both in 1972).
The WHA had also attempted to place another team in Miami, the Screaming Eagles, but the plan fell apart due to the unsuitability of existing arenas (including the Coliseum).[19] The NHL finally expanded to Florida in the 1992–93 season, awarding an expansion franchise to the Tampa Bay Lightning; hockey returned to Miami the following season with the establishment of the Florida Panthers.”
Sometimes being a pioneer means failing, but setting the stage for the future. Sure, there’s bound to be more failures along the way, but there’s times it works out - hence all the success we have seen with NHL franchises in Tampa and Miami/Sunrise over the year; as well as amateur clubs/programs throughout the state and South as a whole.
I’ve been searching to try and find images of the teams, players, programs/merketing, etc., but as you can imagine, it’s tough. Being so long ago, and with no success, there’s very little material out there.
Personally, I think it would be awesome if the Cats took elements from the THL team sweaters to make a really cool third jersey that pays homage to the Grapefruit League. Or even incorporate the league more into their identity would be cool to see.
Would love to see a documentary made on this subject.
Make it happen, Panthers!
Anyways, I hope you found this brief little overview interesting, or at least made you raise an eyebrow (in a good way) to Florida hockey history.
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See you on the ice, Cats fans!
Florida Panthers Blogger • 
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