Cleveland Vintage Blog — Sports

Nick Mileti’s vision for building "The Palace on the Prairie" - The Richfield Coliseum - was two-fold. He aimed to build one of the largest indoor seating capacity facilities in the country - 20,273 for basketball and 18,544 for hockey - while at the same time increasing the fan base potential for both his Cleveland Cavaliers and Cleveland Crusaders, strategically placing his arena between Cleveland and Akron at the Route 303 exit off Interstate 271. Initially, the vision worked beautifully. From the very first event, a concert by none other than Old Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra, on October 26th,...

Our headline may suggest a little bias on our part as to the direction of the piece, but we truly feel that Nick Mileti single-handedly revived interest in the Cleveland Indians (now Guardians), secured an NBA franchise for the city, and even kept hockey afloat with his acquisition of the AHL Cleveland Barons as well as establishing one of the original WHA franchises in the Cleveland Crusaders. And that's not all. Mileti was also such an innovator that he envisioned out in the middle of nowhere, at the exit of Route 303 off Interstate 271, what would become the Richfield...

Since the Cleveland Cavaliers have been become the talk of not only our city but the entire NBA as they continue to thoroughly dominate teams night in and night out, we thought it might be fun to take a somewhat nostalgic look back at a not-so-good period of Cavaliers basketball, the Ted Stepien era of ownership. His initial $2 million investment secured Stepien around 38% ownership that quickly became 82% managing control over the next several months. The years 1980-83 were truly years that lifelong Cavalier fans and the NBA would like to forget. At the time, the Cavaliers were...

If you've been around since the 80s, you had the misfortune of living through Ted Stepien’s ownership of the Cleveland Cavaliers from 1980-1983. You might be aware of the fact that Stepien was also the owner of a highly successful professional men's softball team, the Cleveland Competitors, which he had purchased in 1978 as the Cleveland Jaybirds of the APSPL (American Professional Slo-Pitch League). Cleveland and Milwaukee broke from this league to form the NASL (North American Softball League). Ironically, the new league lasted a single season and was absorbed back into the APSPL, forming yet another new league, the...

Ken Dryden, Bernie Parent, Gerry Cheevers, Roger Crozier, and Tony Esposito are just a few of the names that come to mind when discussing NHL goaltenders that shined during the 1970s. Not only did their distinct playing styles get showcased, but their personalities were reflected in their mask designs that really began to catch fans' attention throughout the league. There is one name, however, that rarely gets mentioned in this top-tier list of vintage netminders. It's a goalie that here in Cleveland we had an all-too-brief yet enduring relationship with to this day: Gilles Meloche. Gilles Meloche: A Bright Spot...