Phoenix Roadrunners 1974-75 to 1976-77

Owners

William McFarland

Karl Eller

Brian O'Neill

Rinks

Veterans Memorial Coliseum

Seasons & Leaders

1974-75 Record 39-31-8, 86 pts Coach Sandy Hucul Goals 36, Michel Cormier 35, John Gray 35, Murray Keogan Assists 45, Dennis Sobchuk 44, Jim Boyd Points 77, Dennis Sobchuk 70, Jim Boyd Penalty Min. 201, John Hughes 168, Cam Connor Wins 25, Gary Kurt Goals Against 3.27, Jack Norris Shutouts 2, Gary Kurt

1975-76 Record 39-35-6, 84 pts Coach Sandy Hucul Goals 47, Del Hall 41, Robbie Ftorek Assists 72, Robbie Ftorek 45, John Gray Points 113, Robbie Ftorek 91, Del Hall Penalty Min. 295, Cam Connor 136, John Gray Wins 21, Jack Norris Goals Against 3.18, Jack Norris Shutouts 1, Gary Kurt 1, Jack Norris

1976-77 Record 28-48-4, 60 pts Coach Al Rollins Goals 46, Robbie Ftorek 38, Del Hall Assists 71, Robbie Ftorek 41, Del Hall Points 117, Robbie Ftorek 79, Del Hall Penalty Min. 169, Jerry Rollins 136, Serge Beaudoin Wins 17, Clay Hebenton Goals Against 4.22, Clay Hebenton Shutouts none

Complete Roster & Regular Season Scoring Totals

Player (G: Goaltender)	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	Penalty Min.
Ftorek, Robbie	213	118	180	298	224
Hall, Del	160	85	85	170	40
Gray, John	182	80	90	170	302
Cormier, Michel	182	70	69	139	52
Boyd, Jim	156	49	78	127	62
Huston, Ron	159	42	83	125	14
Mononen, Lauri	144	36	50	86	29
Rautakallio, Pekka	151	15	70	85	16
Sobchuk, Dennis	78	32	45	77	36
Connor, Cam	130	27	40	67	463
Keogan, Murray	86	35	31	66	72
Niekamp, Jim	229	7	55	62	234
Repo, Seppo	80	29	31	60	10
Borgeson, Don	74	29	28	57	38
Lariviere, Garry	134	14	41	55	176
Hughes, Frank	48	24	29	53	20
Beaudoin, Serge	153	6	45	51	238
Liddington, Bob	80	20	24	44	28
McLeod, Al	186	6	38	44	215
Veneruzzo, Gary	61	19	24	43	27
Odrowski, Gerry	77	5	38	43	77
Tamminen, Juhani	65	10	29	39	72
Gorman, Dave	85	14	25	39	38
Migneault, John	115	14	25	39	30
Hobin, Mike	77	18	19	37	16
Dean, Barry	71	9	25	34	110
McNamee, Pete	69	10	21	31	109
Hughes, John	72	4	25	29	201
Barlow, Bob	51	6	20	26	8
Harris, Hugh	22	10	10	20	15
Mowat, Bob	53	9	10	19	34
Young, Howie	56	4	15	19	67
Bennett, Wendell	67	4	15	19	92
Stevens, Mike	70	2	16	18	69
Rollins, Jerry	63	4	10	14	169
Clarke, Jim	59	1	9	10	57
Hinse, Andre	16	2	7	9	14
Kurt, Gary (G)	130	0	9	9	14
Erickson, Grant	33	4	4	8	6
Bray, Duane	46	2	6	8	62
Sleep, Mike	22	4	2	6	6
Popiel, Jan	28	3	2	5	8
Newell, Rick	25	0	4	4	39
Norris, Jack (G)	74	0	3	3	8
Sobchuk, Gene	3	1	0	1	0
Davidson, Blair	2	0	0	0	2
Hebenton, Clay (G)	58	0	0	0	2

Complete Playoff Scoring Totals

Player (G: Goaltender)	Games	Goals	Assists	Points	Penalty Min.
Ftorek, Robbie	10	3	8	11	4
Gray, John	10	3	4	7	19
Boyd, Jim	10	4	5	7	4
McLeod, Al	10	0	6	6	8
Hall, Del	5	2	3	5	0
Sobchuk, Dennis	5	4	1	5	2
Mononen, Lauri	5	1	3	4	2
Bennett, Wendell	5	1	2	3	6
Huston, Ron	5	1	1	2	0
Rautakallio, Pekka	5	0	2	2	0
Veneruzzo, Gary	5	2	0	2	7
Odrowski, Gerry	5	0	2	2	0
Gorman, Dave	5	0	2	2	24
Erickson, Grant	5	0	2	2	0
Lariviere, Garry	6	0	2	2	2
Cormier, Michel	5	1	0	1	2
Keogan, Murray	5	0	1	1	0
Niekamp, Jim	5	0	1	1	0
Borgeson, Don	5	0	1	1	2
Beaudoin, Serge	5	1	0	1	10
McNamee, Pete	5	1	0	1	2
Stevens, Mike	5	0	1	1	0
Newell, Rick	5	0	1	1	2
Connor, Cam	10	1	0	1	23
Mowat, Bob	3	0	0	0	0
Migneault, John	4	0	0	0	0
Kurt, Gary (G)	4	0	0	0	0
Sobchuk, Gene	5	0	0	0	0
Norris, Jack (G)	7	0	0	0	0

Complete Regular Season Goaltending

Goaltender	Games	Minutes	Goals	Shutouts	Record	Average
Kurt, Gary	120	6962	465	3	54-55-7	4.01
Norris, Jack	74	4374	235	2	35-29-8	3.22
Hebenton, Clay	58	3209	229	0	17-30-3	4.28

Complete Playoff Goaltending

Goaltender	Games	Minutes	Goals	Shutouts	Record	Average
Norris, Jack	7	398	27	0	2-5	4.07
Kurt, Gary	4	207	12	0	1-2	3.48

History

Phoenix became home to the new Roadrunners of the Western Hockey League in 1967, the franchise previously based in Victoria as property of the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Roadrunners would play at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in downtown Phoenix, later sharing the arena with the Phoenix Suns of the NBA starting in 1968. The Roadrunners were a solid team that attracted a core of fans, suggesting that hockey and the desert weren't incompatible concepts. Arizona has long been a refuge for "Snowbirds", people from the northern climates escaping the cold, snow and chill to enjoy the comfortable Arizona winters. Tapping into this potential fanbase proved to be wise and lucrative. The Roadrunners were league champions for both 1972-73 and 1973-74, winning the Lester Cup each time. The Western League, however, was slowly declining due to the incursion of the National Hockey League into Los Angeles, Oakland and Vancouver in 1967 and 1970. The World Hockey Association also saw these western markets as attractive locations for its teams. In 1973, the owners of the WHL Roadrunners — Bill MacFarland and Karl Eller being the principals — were awarded a place in the WHA as an expansion team, set to play in 1974-75. Although an expansion team, the WHA Roadrunners maintained a lot of continuity with its 1973-74 squad, with nearly a dozen players carrying over from 1973-74 to the 1974-75 team. Alexander "Sandy" Hucul, coach of the WHL team, stayed on as coach of the WHA team. This continuity gave the Roadrunners a critical leg-up on its WHA expansion brothers in Indianapolis, and the two new teams in the NHL, Kansas City and Washington. The Roadrunners featured strong players at every position: Gary Kurt (from New Jersey) and Jack Norris (from Edmonton via Indianapolis) in goal, Bob Barlow (WHL Roadrunners) and all-star Gerry Odrowski (from Los Angeles) on defense, and forwards Michel Cormier, Murray Keogan (both of the WHL Roadrunners), Jim Boyd, John Gray (both of the CHL Oklahoma City Blazers), Dennis Sobchuk (on loan for the year from the Cincinnati Stingers) and Robbie Ftorek (late of NHL Detroit). Coach Hucul demanded his teams play a tight-checking game but also gave his scorers room to create plays. As a result, the Roadrunners were an expansion team in name only, finishing with 39 wins, 300 goals scored, and a trip to the 1975 playoffs. Five players scored at least 30 goals, while Boyd and Don Borgeson contributed 26 and 29 goals. Fourteen rookies played at least 50 games, the defense was third stingiest in the league with 265 goals against, and Hucul was named Coach of the Year by the league. Unfortunately, the Roadrunners lasted just a single round in the playoffs, bowing to Quebec in five games. The next season was a near-repeat of the first season: the Roadrunners won 39 games again and another trip to the playoffs. Robbie Ftorek became one of the league's elite players, scoring 41 goals, assisting on 72 for a total of 113 points. There was turnover as Gerry Odrowski moved on to Minnesota, Dennis Sobchuk went back to the Stingers, and Don Borgeson signed with Denver. In their places were Del Hall, Ron Huston and Gary Veneruzzo. Hall led the team with 47 goals, while the defense now included Pekka Rautakallio, Serge Beaudoin and Garry Lariviere, joining Jim Niekamp as the main returnee from the 1974-75 team. As in the previous year, the Roadrunners could not advance in the playoffs, losing to San Diego in the first round. Despite two 39-win seasons, the Roadrunners were struggling financially, attendance at the Veteran's Memorial Coliseum not enough to support the team. When the 1976-77 season started, a new principal owner, Brian O'Neill, was in place; Coach Sandy Hucul had stepped down, replaced by General manager Al Rollins, and a sense that this could be a long season if the finances didn't improve quickly. With the WHA leading the way in procuring European talent, the Roadrunners made a bold move to have its 1976 preseason based in Finland. The 1975-76 team had defenseman Pekka Rautakallio and forward Lauri Mononen. They were augmented by forwards Seppo Repo and Juhani Tamminen. At first, the 1976-77 team played well, with a 12-9-2 record as of late November. Robbie Ftorek was having another outstanding season, Del Hall continued to score, and the Finn line of Repo, Tamminen and Mononen would eventually account for 60 goals. However, the defense did not hold up. Veteran goaltender Jack Norris was gone, with rookie Clay Hebenton handling most of the starts, and Gary Kurt as his back-up. Kurt was ineffective, stopping just 84% of his shots with a goals-against average of 5.55. The team started December with an 8-game losing streak and never recovered. The team's financial health was moribund, and there was concern the Roadrunners would fold in mid-season. To stave off an immediate fold, the team secretly sold off its talent to other teams, with the agreement that the players would finish the year in Phoenix and such sales would not be announced until the end of the season. Even Robbie Ftorek wasn't safe: he'd been sold to Cincinnati with over two months to play in the season. The Roadrunners made no secret its intention to fold immediately upon the close of the season, making the announcement in early March. The team just played out its schedule, winning occasionally, free-falling to a 28-48-4 record and a garish 383 goals against. The team's last game in the WHA was on April 6 against Indianapolis. Lauri Mononen had the hat trick in the 7-3 victory. As soon as the lights went out, the team was defunct. Hockey in Phoenix existed in spurts for the next many years. A pared-down version of the Roadrunners tried to make a go of it in the Central League in 1977-78, but dropped out in early December. That Christmas, they were now members of the new Pacific Hockey League, a four-team circuit assembled by ex-WHA executives Jim Browitt and Walt Marlow. The PHL was a low-rent independent league with teams in Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, set up to play a 48-game schedule. It was primarily a safety net for the many players now without a team after the WHA dropped by three teams (along with Phoenix, both San Diego and Calgary called it quits in the summer of 1977). A number of WHA Roadrunners signed up to play for the PHL teams. The PHL lasted just two years, and the Roadrunners were named League champs for the 1978-79 season by dint of having the league's best record; there were no playoffs that spring. There was no hockey in Phoenix until 1987, when the Roadrunners were again resurrected, now as members of the International Hockey League. They aligned themselves as the top minor-league affiliate of the Los Angeles Kings. Wayne Gretzky even played a preseason game as a member of the Roadrunners in the early 1990s. In 1996, the Winnipeg Jets moved operations to Phoenix, now rebranded as the Coyotes (later, as the Arizona Coyotes). For that one season (1996-97), the Coyotes and Roadrunners played alongside one another. Unlike their cartoon counterparts, the Coyotes came out as victors, the Roadrunners folding after the 1997 season closed. Wayne Gretzky would later coach the Coyotes in the mid-2000s. Hockey persisted in Phoenix, as the new Mustangs of the WCHL took up residence for the next four seasons. From 2005-2009, yet another version of the Roadrunners would be brought to life, now members of the ECHL. The "Roadrunners" name and brand were later transferred to a minor-league team based in Tucson as members of the AHL, being the top affiliate of the Arizona Coyotes. The NHL's Coyotes were folded in 2024 after years of mismanagement and no hope of a viable home arena in its future. The team's assets were transferred to a new club to be based in Salt Lake City, Utah, starting in the 2024-25 season. This Utah club is considered an expansion team and not a continuation of the Phoenix team. As such, upon the team's fold in April 2024, this essentially closed the book on the Original Winnipeg Jets and Phoenix Coyotes franchise. The NHL has left open an option to award an expansion team to Phoenix within five years if a playing site can be developed.

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• Article: Color of Hockey: Alton White (The Hockey News), by William Douglas — March 8, 2020
• Review: US Sports History, by Rick Macales — Feb 6, 2021
• Podcast: Good Seats Still Available, by Tim Hanlon — Feb 28, 2021
• Podcast: Digital to Dice (Youtube), by Dave Gardner — July 3, 2022

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