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The
Cincinnati Tigers were members of the
Central Hockey League during the 1981-82
season and were the primary farm club to
the Toronto Maple Leafs. The club called
Riverfront Coliseum their home and were
led by future New Jersey Devils head
coach Doug Carpenter. The Tigers can
easily be called the most talented team
that ever hit the ice in Cincinnati
history.
Cincinnati was an offensive machine,
racking up 375 goals with a staggering
4.67 goals-per-game average. The 375
goals scored is still the most in a
single season by any Cincinnati hockey
club to date. Left wing Reg Thomas had
47 of the goals and center Bruce
Boudreau had 42. Both Tigers totaled
more then 100 points each. Had Bruce
Boudreau not been away with the Maple
Leafs, his final goal total would have
been higher. Forward Norm Aubin also
missed action with the Tigers when he
was called up to the parent club after
31 games. Aubin had scored 15 goals and
was well on his way to racking up more.
Had Boudreau and Aubin played the full
season in Cincinnati, the Tigers most
likely would have cleared the 400-goal
mark by season's end.
Cincinnati
also was the most dominate in the CHL on
the power play. Boudreau, Thomas and
Blight, coupled with defensemen Dave
Shand and Greg Hotham were incredible on
the power play. The
Tigers connected on 39 percent of their
power play chances.
Had
defenseman Greg Hotham not been traded
to the Pittsburg Penguins after 46
games, the total would have been
stronger.
Cincinnati
may have scored plenty of goals but they
also gave up plenty as well. The Tigers
gave up a total of 340 goals to their
opponents by season's end.
The club
saw a total of five different
goaltenders over the course of the
season. Goaltender Curt Ridley was
assigned to Cincinnati by Toronto
halfway through the season and was
suppose to be the Tigers regular
goaltender but Ridley was injured and
never regained his form when he returned
to the line up. He wound up only playing
in a total of 22 games.
Bob Parent turned out to be the Tigers'
main goaltender despite being average at
best. Parent played in a total of 65
games which still stands as the most
games played in Cincinnati by any
goaltender.
The other three Tigers goalies were Jiri
Crha who came to Cincinnati on a
conditioning assignment and only played
in a couple of games.
Martin Magley who had been assigned to
Cincinnati by Toronto to be a backup but
never saw any ice time and Doug
Dragasevich who played in only one
single game.
Toronto gave Cincinnati a terrific team
but regrettably support for this great
Cincinnati sports gem was dismal at
best. The Tigers seldom drew more than
1,500 fans a game and in some cases the
club played in front of crowds in the
hundreds. A handful of reasons can be to
blame for the club failing.
The Tigers' rent at the Coliseum for one
thing was high, which was tough on the
club and pushed the Tigers to have high
ticket prices. The club's annual rent
rounded out to about $ 208,000. To add
to the high ticket prices, parking fees
and concession prices were steep also.
Plus the exchange rate
of currency between the U.S. and Canada
was tough on the team. With a 20%
difference in money, it was much more
expensive for a Canadian team to operate
a minor league franchise in the U.S.
To make matters worse, coverage of the club in local papers was
dismal at best. The tiny amount of fans
that did follow the Tigers had to dig
through the newspapers to find the
smallest bit of coverage. The handful of
articles that did find their way into
the papers were buried beneath extensive
coverage of the Cincinnati Bengals Super
Bowl run.
The Tigers ended the season
with a solid 46-30-4 record and finished
one point behind the Salt Lake Golden
Eagles in the division. However, the
Tigers ended their brilliant run with a
thud in the playoffs, losing to the
Dallas Blackhawks 3 games to 1.
Despite head coach Doug Carpenter's
claim at the beginning of the season
that "This isn't a situation where we
come in one season and then take off",
that is exactly what happened.
Despite the Maple Leafs promise of a
three year affiliation, Toronto pulled
the plug on the Tigers shortly after the
season ended and moved its farm club to
the St. Catharines Saints in the
American Hockey League.
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