Cleveland Lumberjacks
The Cleveland Lumberjacks were an International Hockey League team based in Cleveland, Ohio. Owner: Larry Gordon Logo design: "Buzz"- A beaver wearing overalls holding a homemade hockey stick framed by a circular saw blade Division titles won: none Regular season titles won: none League championships won: none Mascot: Buzz Local media: WUAB, WBNX, WKNR Originally formed in 1960 in Muskegon, Michigan as the Muskegon Zephyrs, the team was renamed the Mohawks in 1965 and the Lumberjacks in 1984, it moved to Cleveland in 1992 as part of the IHL's move upmarket, bringing professional hockey back to Cleveland for the first time in 14 years. It folded along with the IHL at the end of the 2000–01 season. Market served by: Cleveland Barons of the NHL Franchise replaced by: Cleveland Barons of the AHL Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, OTL = Overtime losses/Shootout losses, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against, PIM = Penalties in minutes Goals: 48 Dave Michayluk Assists: 70 Jock Callander Points: 112 Dave Michayluk Points, Defenseman: 68 Dale DeGray Penalty Minutes: 427 Paul Laus Game Winning Goals: 12 Jamie Sargent Wins: 26 Rob Dopson Shutouts: 6 Zac Bierk GAA: 2.68 Evgeni Nabokov SV%:.920 Evgeni Nabokov Career Goals: 181 Jock Callander Career Assists: 279 Jock Callander Career Points: 460 Jock Callander Career Penalty Minutes: 948 Rick Hayward Career Goaltending Wins: 43 Philippe DeRouville Career Shutouts: 6 Zac Bierk Career Games: 501 Jock Callander Cleveland Lumberjacks at The Internet Hockey Database
Cleveland Barons (NHL)
The Cleveland Barons were a professional ice hockey team in the National Hockey League from 1976 to 1978. They were a relocation of the California Golden Seals franchise that had played in Oakland since 1967. After just two seasons, the team merged with the Minnesota North Stars; as a result, the NHL operated with 17 teams during the 1978–79 season. As of 2019, the Barons remain the last franchise in the four major North American sports leagues to cease operations. Ohio did not have another NHL team until the Columbus Blue Jackets joined the league 22 years in 2000; the Barons originated as the California Golden Seals in the 1967 NHL expansion. After new arena plans in San Francisco were cancelled, the NHL dropped its objection to a relocation of the perpetually troubled franchise from Oakland. Minority owner George Gund III persuaded majority owner Melvin Swig to move the team to his hometown of Cleveland for the 1976–77 season; the team was named "Barons" in honor of the successful team in the American Hockey League that played in the city from 1929 to 1973, winning nine Calder Cups.
The AHL Barons' owner, Nick Mileti, moved that team to Florida in favor of his Cleveland Crusaders team in the new World Hockey Association. Cleveland had been mentioned as a possible NHL city as early as the 1930s, when the then-struggling Montreal Canadiens considered moving there, it had been turned down for an NHL expansion team on three previous occasions, in the 1950s and 1960s. The Barons played in the suburban Richfield Coliseum in Richfield, Ohio, an arena built for the WHA's Crusaders and the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers. At the time, the Richfield Coliseum had the largest seating capacity in the NHL, at 18,544; the NHL approved the move to Cleveland on July 14, 1976, but details were not finalized until late August, there was little time or money for promotion of the new team. The Barons never recovered from this lack of visibility, they never came close to filling the Coliseum in their two years in Cleveland. The team's home opener on October 7, 1976, drew only 8,900 fans, they drew 10,000 or more fans in only seven out of forty home games.
Attendance was worse than it had been in Oakland and the team did not draw as many fans as the WHA's Crusaders had. The Barons were troubled by an unfavorable lease with the Coliseum. In January 1977, Swig hinted, he asked the board of governors for a bailout. The board turned down Swig's request out of hand. At the time, no one in the NHL offices believed. No NHL team had folded since 1942 and only one team had folded mid-season, when the Montreal Wanderers disbanded during the NHL's inaugural season in 1917-18; the situation deteriorated and team workers went unpaid for two months. The bottom fell out in February; the league considered folding the team and holding a dispersal draft for the players. By February 18, the players had lost their patience, threatened to not take the ice for their game against the Colorado Rockies. Wanting to avoid the embarrassment of a player strike, as well as a team folding at mid-season, the league and the NHLPA made a last-minute $1.3 million loan to allow the Barons to finish the season.
After the team finished last in the Adams Division again, Swig sold his interest to Gund and his brother Gordon. For 1977–78, the Gunds poured money into the team, it seemed to make a difference at first; the Barons stunned the defending Stanley Cup champion Montreal Canadiens on November 23 before a boisterous crowd of 12,859. After a brief slump, general manager Harry Howell pulled off several trades in an attempt to make the team tougher, it paid off, the Barons knocked off three of the NHL's top teams, the Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Islanders and Buffalo Sabres in consecutive games in January 1978. A few weeks a record crowd of 13,110 saw the Barons tie the Philadelphia Flyers 2–2, it did not last. After the season, the Gunds failed. With the Barons registering on Cleveland's sports landscape, the Gunds searched for a way out. Meanwhile, the group of eight owners of the Minnesota North Stars found the team facing financial difficulties similar to those weighing down the Barons. Fearing that two franchises were on the verge of folding, the league granted approval on June 14, 1978 for the two teams to merge.
The amalgamated team retained the North Stars' name and history. However, the wealthier Gunds were majority owners, the North Stars assumed the Barons' place in the Adams Division, they moved to the Norris Division in the league's 1981 realignment. In 1991, the Gunds were chosen as inaugural owners of the new San Jose Sharks expansion franchise, selling their North Stars shares to a new ownership group; the league arranged a special dispersal and expansion draft in which the Sharks claimed 16 North Stars players in a dispersal draft, with both teams allowed to choose players in an expansion draft. Although the NHL considers the Sharks to be a separate franchise from the Seals/Golden Seals/Barons, the dispersal to San Jose had the effect of reversing the original Barons-North Stars merger, with the Sharks occupying the same market as the Golden Seals did prior to their move to Cleveland; the new North Stars owners moved their team to Dallas as the Dallas Stars in 1993. The Gunds move
Ice hockey
Ice hockey is a contact team sport played on ice in a rink, in which two teams of skaters use their sticks to shoot a vulcanized rubber puck into their opponent's net to score points. The sport is known to be fast-paced and physical, with teams consisting of six players each: one goaltender, five players who skate up and down the ice trying to take the puck and score a goal against the opposing team. Ice hockey is most popular in Canada and eastern Europe, the Nordic countries and the United States. Ice hockey is the official national winter sport of Canada. In addition, ice hockey is the most popular winter sport in Belarus, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Slovakia and Switzerland. North America's National Hockey League is the highest level for men's ice hockey and the strongest professional ice hockey league in the world; the Kontinental Hockey League is much of Eastern Europe. The International Ice Hockey Federation is the formal governing body for international ice hockey, with the IIHF managing international tournaments and maintaining the IIHF World Ranking.
Worldwide, there are ice hockey federations in 76 countries. In Canada, the United States, Nordic countries, some other European countries the sport is known as hockey. Ice hockey is believed to have evolved from simple stick and ball games played in the 18th and 19th century United Kingdom and elsewhere; these games were brought to North America and several similar winter games using informal rules as they were developed, such as "shinny" and "ice polo". The contemporary sport of ice hockey was developed in Canada, most notably in Montreal, where the first indoor hockey game was played on March 3, 1875; some characteristics of that game, such as the length of the ice rink and the use of a puck, have been retained to this day. Amateur ice hockey leagues began in the 1880s, professional ice hockey originated around 1900; the Stanley Cup, emblematic of ice hockey club supremacy, was first awarded in 1893 to recognize the Canadian amateur champion and became the championship trophy of the NHL. In the early 1900s, the Canadian rules were adopted by the Ligue Internationale de Hockey sur Glace, the precursor of the IIHF and the sport was played for the first time at the Olympics during the 1920 Summer Olympics.
In international competitions, the national teams of six countries predominate: Canada, Czech Republic, Russia and the United States. Of the 69 medals awarded all-time in men's competition at the Olympics, only seven medals were not awarded to one of those countries. In the annual Ice Hockey World Championships, 177 of 201 medals have been awarded to the six nations. Teams outside the "Big Six" have won only five medals in either competition since 1953; the World Cup of Hockey is organized by the National Hockey League and the National Hockey League Players' Association, unlike the annual World Championships and quadrennial Olympic tournament, both run by the International Ice Hockey Federation. World Cup games are played under NHL rules and not those of the IIHF, the tournament occurs prior to the NHL pre-season, allowing for all NHL players to be available, unlike the World Championships, which overlaps with the NHL's Stanley Cup playoffs. Furthermore, all 12 Women's Olympic and 36 IIHF World Women's Championships medals were awarded to one of these six countries.
The Canadian national team or the United States national team have between them won every gold medal of either series. In England, field hockey has been called "hockey" and what was referenced by first appearances in print; the first known mention spelled as "hockey" occurred in the 1773 book Juvenile Sports and Pastimes, to Which Are Prefixed, Memoirs of the Author: Including a New Mode of Infant Education, by Richard Johnson, whose chapter XI was titled "New Improvements on the Game of Hockey". The 1573 Statute of Galway banned a sport called "'hokie'—the hurling of a little ball with sticks or staves". A form of this word was thus being used in the 16th century, though much removed from its current usage; the belief that hockey was mentioned in a 1363 proclamation by King Edward III of England is based on modern translations of the proclamation, in Latin and explicitly forbade the games "Pilam Manualem, Pedivam, & Bacularem: & ad Canibucam & Gallorum Pugnam". The English historian and biographer John Strype did not use the word "hockey" when he translated the proclamation in 1720, instead translating "Canibucam" as "Cambuck".
According to the Austin Hockey Association, the word "puck" derives from the Scottish Gaelic puc or the Irish poc. "... The blow given by a hurler to the ball with his camán or hurley is always called a puck." Stick-and-ball games date back to pre-Christian times. In Europe, these games included the Irish game of hurling, the related Scottish game of shinty and versions of field hockey. IJscolf, a game resembling colf on an ice-covered surface, was popular in the Low Countries between the Middle Ages and the Dutch Golden Age, it was played with a wooden curved bat, a wooden or leather ball and two poles, with t
Cleveland Cavaliers
The Cleveland Cavaliers referred to as the Cavs, are an American professional basketball team based in Cleveland, Ohio. The Cavs compete in the National Basketball Association as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Central Division; the team began play as an expansion team in 1970, along with the Portland Trail Blazers and Buffalo Braves. Home games were first held at Cleveland Arena from 1970 to 1974, followed by the Richfield Coliseum from 1974 to 1994. Since 1994, the Cavs have played home games at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in downtown Cleveland, shared with the Cleveland Gladiators of the Arena Football League and the Cleveland Monsters of the American Hockey League. Dan Gilbert has owned the team since March 2005; the Cavaliers opened their inaugural season losing their first 15 games and struggled in their early years, placing no better than sixth in the Eastern Conference during their first five seasons. The team won their first Central Division title in 1976, which marked the first winning season and playoff appearance in franchise history, where they advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals.
The franchise was purchased by Ted Stepien in 1980. Stepien's tenure as owner was marked by six coaching changes, questionable trades and draft decisions, poor attendance, leading to $15 million in financial losses; the Cavs went 66–180 in that time and endured a 24-game losing streak spanning the 1981–82 and 1982–83 seasons. George and Gordon Gund purchased the franchise in 1983. During the latter half of the 1980s and through much of the 1990s, the Cavs were a regular playoff contender, led by players such as Mark Price and Brad Daugherty, advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals in 1992. After the team's playoff appearance in 1998, the Cavs had six consecutive losing seasons with no playoff action. Cleveland was awarded with the top overall pick in the 2003 draft, they selected LeBron James. Behind James and Zydrunas Ilgauskas, the Cavaliers again became a regular playoff contender by 2005, they made their first appearance in the NBA Finals in 2007 after winning the first Eastern Conference championship in franchise history.
After failing to return to the NBA Finals in the ensuing three seasons, James joined the Miami Heat in 2010. As a result, the Cavaliers finished the 2010–11 season last in the conference, enduring a 26-game losing streak that, as of 2017, ranks as the longest in NBA history for a single season and second overall. Between 2010 and 2014, the team won the top pick in the NBA draft lottery three times, first in 2011 where they selected Kyrie Irving, again in 2013 and 2014. LeBron James led the team to four straight NBA Finals appearances. In 2016, the Cavaliers won their first NBA Championship, marking Cleveland's first major sports title since 1964; the 2016 NBA Finals victory over the Golden State Warriors marked the first time in Finals history a team had come back to win the series after trailing three games to one. The Cavaliers have made 22 playoff appearances, won seven Central Division titles, five Eastern Conference titles, one NBA title; the Cavaliers began play in the 1970–71 NBA season as an expansion team.
They set losing records in each of their first five seasons before winning their first division title in 1976. That team was led by Austin Carr, Bobby "Bingo" Smith, Jim Chones, Dick Snyder, Nate Thurmond, head coach Bill Fitch, was remembered most for the "Miracle at Richfield", in which the Cavaliers defeated the Washington Bullets 4–3 in the Eastern Conference Semifinals, they won Game 87 -- 85, on a shot by Snyder with four seconds to go. The Cavaliers moved on to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time, but were without Chones after he broke his foot in a practice right before the series opener; as a result, the Cavaliers went on to lose 4–2 to the Boston Celtics. They made playoff appearances in the following two seasons before going on a six-year playoff hiatus; the early 1980s were marked by Ted Stepien's ownership, who had a disastrous run as owner and de facto general manager between 1980 and 1983. During Stepien's reign, the Cavaliers made a practice of trading future draft picks for marginal veteran players.
His most notable deal sent a 1982 first-round pick to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for Dan Ford and the 22nd overall pick in 1980. As a result of Stepien's dealings, the NBA introduced the "Stepien Rule", which prohibits teams from trading first-round draft picks in successive seasons; the Cavaliers went 66–180, dropped to the bottom of the league in attendance and lost $15 million during Stepien's three years as the owner. The Cavs went through six coaches including four during the 1981 -- 82 season; the team finished 15–67, between March and November 1982, the team had a 24-game losing streak, which at the time, was the NBA's longest losing streak. George and Gordon Gund purchased the Cavaliers from Stepien in 1983; the Cavaliers made the playoffs ten times between 1984–85 and 1997–98. In 1988–89, the Cavaliers had their best season to date, finishing the regular season with 57–25 record behind the likes of Brad Daugherty, Mark Price, Ron Harper and Larry Nance, head coach Lenny Wilkens.
They reached the Eastern Conference Finals that year. However, between 1998–99 and 2004–05, the Cavaliers failed to make a playoff appearance; the 2002–03 season saw the Cavaliers finish 17–65, tied for the worst record in the NBA. The Cavaliers' luck changed; the team selected heralded forward and future NBA MVP LeBron James, a native of nearby Akron who had risen to national stardom at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School. In 2005, the team would be sold to businessman Dan Gilbert; that year, the
Matt Carkner
Matthew "Matt" Carkner is a Canadian former professional ice hockey defenceman. He was drafted by the Montreal Canadiens 58th overall in the 1999 NHL Entry Draft and played in the National Hockey League for the San Jose Sharks, Ottawa Senators, New York Islanders. Carkner joined the Peterborough Petes of the Ontario Hockey League for the 1997-98 season, where he earned six assists in 57 games as a rookie, he appeared in four playoff games, but didn't register a point. He improved his offensive production in the following season, scoring two goals and 18 points in 60 games. In five playoff games, Carkner had no points, 20 penalty minutes, he earned the Eastern Conference Most Improved Player award for the season. In the 1999-2000 season, he scored three goals and 16 points in 62 games with Peterborough, followed by five playoff games, in which Carkner would have an assist, his fourth and final season with the club in 2000-01 had Carkner score a career high eight goals, as he earned 16 points in 53 games, added three assists in seven post-season games.
He finished his OHL career with 56 points and 599 penalty minutes in 232 games. Carkner was drafted by the Montreal Canadiens of the National Hockey League with the 58th overall pick in the 1999 NHL Entry Draft. In his first professional season, the Sharks assigned Carkner to their minor league affiliate, the Cleveland Barons of the American Hockey League. In 74 games, Carkner had three assists, 335 penalty minutes, he only appeared in 39 games the following seasons after suffering a knee injury in a game against the Utah Grizzlies on January 2, 2003, causing him to miss the remainder of the season. He came back with the Barons for the 2003-04 season. In nine post-season games, Carkner had 39 penalty minutes. With the 2004-05 NHL lockout wiping out NHL play that season, he remained with the Barons the following season as well. Carkner saw his offensive numbers explode during the 2005-06 season with the Barons, as he scored 10 goals and 31 points in 69 games, he made his NHL debut with the Sharks that year, appearing in one game and recording an assist in six minutes of ice time on February 6, 2006, in a 4–3 loss to the Calgary Flames.
Carkner became a free agent at the end of the season and signed a contract with the Pittsburgh Penguins on July 23, 2006. He spent the entire 2006-07 season with the Penguins' AHL affiliate, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. Carkner had 19 penalty minutes during the team's playoff run. After just one season with the Penguins, Carkner left as a free agent and signed with his hometown Ottawa Senators team on July 3, 2007; the entire 2007-08 season was spent with the Senators' AHL affiliate, the Binghamton Senators, spending two seasons there while playing one game with Ottawa in a 6–4 loss to the Boston Bruins on January 8, 2009. On September 29, 2009, Ottawa announced that Carkner had made the team's roster, as he spent the entire 2009-10 season in the NHL. In 81 games, he had two goals, 11 points, 190 penalty minutes, helping Ottawa reach the playoffs, he scored his first NHL goal three games into the season, scoring on New York Islanders goaltender Martin Biron in the second period of a 3–2 Senators victory.
In the playoffs, he had a memorable triple-overtime goal in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference quarter-finals against Marc-André Fleury and the Pittsburgh Penguins. He appeared in 50 games with Ottawa in the 2010-11 season, scoring a goal and seven points, as well as earning 136 penalty minutes. Surgery to his right knee limited Carkner to only 29 games during the 2011-12 season. In the second game of Ottawa's first round playoff series against the New York Rangers, Carkner pummeled Rangers' forward Brian Boyle early in the first period punching the unwilling combatant in the face and earning a game misconduct, he received a one-game suspension for the incident. Boyle had punched Senators' star defenseman Erik Karlsson in the face during Game 1, Carkner's actions were viewed as retribution. On July 1, 2012, Carkner signed a three-year contract with the New York Islanders, he played with the team during the next two seasons, but a back surgery in the 2014 offseason left him sidelined for the first 56 games of the 2014–15 season.
He was activated off of the injured reserve list and placed on waivers on February 15, 2015 and cleared the next day, being assigned to the team's minor league affiliate, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers of the AHL. On August 11, 2015, Carkner opted to remain with the Islanders' AHL affiliate as a free agent, agreeing to a two-year contract with the Sound Tigers. On July 7, 2016, Carkner announced his retirement from professional hockey, via his Facebook page, he accepted a position to remain in the Islanders organization as an assistant coach to the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. Before signing his first one-way deal with the Senators, Carkner resided in Westport, Ontario with his wife Kary, their two children. Carkner is a third cousin of former NHL defenceman Terry Carkner, his father Dennis operates D's Collision Centre in Winchester, Ontario. 1998–99 OHL Eastern Conference "Most Improved Player" Award 2006–07 AHL Yanick Dupre Memorial Award Biographical information and career statistics from NHL.com, or Eliteprospects.com, or Hockey-Reference.com, or Legends of Hockey, or The Internet Hockey Database Matt Carkner at NHLPA.com 15 Questions with Matt Carkner
Josh Hennessy
Joshua Hennessy is an American professional ice hockey player, an unrestricted free agent. He most played for the Providence Bruins of the American Hockey League. Hennessy played in the National Hockey League for the Ottawa Senators and Boston Bruins; as a youth, Hennessy played in the 1999 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament with the Boston Junior Eagles minor ice hockey team. Hennessy was drafted 17th overall in 2001, by the Quebec Remparts in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League draft, he finished the 2001–02 QMJHL season with 40 points, good for the sixth in scoring on his team. He did not speak French when he arrived, but became fluent and served as the team's captain. Hennessy played in the 2003 Memorial Cup, but Quebec was eliminated at the after round-robin tournament losing all three games, he was drafted by the San Jose Sharks 43rd overall at the 2003 NHL Entry Draft. He was awarded the Karcher Plaque as the QMJHL Humanitarian of the Year in 2004. In the 2004–05 QMJHL season, Hennessey led the team in scoring, played with prospect Alexander Radulov.
Hennessy began his professional career with the San Jose Sharks' American Hockey League affiliate, the Cleveland Barons, in 2005–06. He assists for 63 points in 80 games, he was one of only two players on the team to play in every regular-season game. Hennessy holds the franchise records for both goals and points in a season by a rookie and was named the Barons Rookie of the Year for the 2005–06 season. Hennessy was traded to the Ottawa Senators via the Chicago Blackhawks on July 9, 2006, in a three-way deal. Hennessy spent the majority of 2006–07 season with the Senators' AHLs affiliate, the Binghamton Senators. During the season on his second call up to Ottawa, Hennessy scored his first NHL goal on January 7, 2007, against the Philadelphia Flyers. On May 6, 2010, Hennessy left the Senators organization after four years, signing a one-year deal with Swiss club HC Lugano. On July 5, 2011, Hennessy signed a two-way contract with the Boston Bruins, he was assigned to their AHL affiliate, the Providence Bruins, for the majority of the 2011–12 season.
In 67 games, he contributed offensively with 41 points before he was recalled to appear in three scoreless games with the Bruins. During the 2014–15 season, Hennessy featured in 27 games in the Kontinental Hockey League with Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk before opting for a mid-season transfer to Swedish club Växjö Lakers on December 30, 2014. In adding 13 points in just 20 games to close out the season with the Lakers and claim the Swedish championship, Hennessy signed a two-year contract extension on June 4, 2015. Biographical information and career statistics from NHL.com, or Eliteprospects.com, or Hockey-Reference.com, or The Internet Hockey Database
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is a men's professional basketball league in North America. It is considered to be the premier men's professional basketball league in the world; the NBA is an active member of USA Basketball, recognized by FIBA as the national governing body for basketball in the United States. The NBA is one of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. NBA players are the world's best paid athletes by average annual salary per player; the league was founded in New York City on June 1946, as the Basketball Association of America. The league adopted the name National Basketball Association on August 3, 1949, after merging with the competing National Basketball League; the league's several international as well as individual team offices are directed out of its head offices located in the Olympic Tower at 645 Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. NBA Entertainment and NBA TV studios are directed out of offices located in New Jersey; the Basketball Association of America was founded in 1946 by owners of the major ice hockey arenas in the Northeastern and Midwestern United States and Canada.
On November 1, 1946, in Toronto, Canada, the Toronto Huskies hosted the New York Knickerbockers at Maple Leaf Gardens, in a game the NBA now refers to as the first game played in NBA history. The first basket was made by Ossie Schectman of the Knickerbockers. Although there had been earlier attempts at professional basketball leagues, including the American Basketball League and the NBL, the BAA was the first league to attempt to play in large arenas in major cities. During its early years, the quality of play in the BAA was not better than in competing leagues or among leading independent clubs such as the Harlem Globetrotters. For instance, the 1948 ABL finalist Baltimore Bullets moved to the BAA and won that league's 1948 title, the 1948 NBL champion Minneapolis Lakers won the 1949 BAA title. Prior to the 1948–49 season, however, NBL teams from Fort Wayne, Indianapolis and Rochester jumped to the BAA, which established the BAA as the league of choice for collegians looking to turn professional.
On August 3, 1949, the remaining NBL teams–Syracuse, Tri-Cities, Sheboygan and Waterloo–merged into the BAA. In deference to the merger and to avoid possible legal complications, the league name was changed to the present National Basketball Association though the merged league retained the BAA's governing body, including Podoloff. To this day, the NBA claims the BAA's history as its own, it now reckons the arrival of the NBL teams as an expansion, not a merger, does not recognize NBL records and statistics. The new league had seventeen franchises located in a mix of large and small cities, as well as large arenas and smaller gymnasiums and armories. In 1950, the NBA consolidated to eleven franchises, a process that continued until 1953–54, when the league reached its smallest size of eight franchises: the New York Knicks, Boston Celtics, Philadelphia Warriors, Minneapolis Lakers, Rochester Royals, Fort Wayne Pistons, Tri-Cities Blackhawks, Syracuse Nationals, all of which remain in the league today.
The process of contraction saw. The Hawks shifted from the Tri-Cities to Milwaukee in 1951, to St. Louis in 1955; the Rochester Royals moved from Rochester, New York, to Cincinnati in 1957 and the Pistons relocated from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Detroit in 1957. Japanese-American Wataru Misaka broke the NBA color barrier in the 1947–48 season when he played for the New York Knicks, he remained the only non-white player in league history prior to the first African-American, Harold Hunter, signing with the Washington Capitols in 1950. Hunter was cut from the team during training camp, but several African-American players did play in the league that year, including Chuck Cooper with the Celtics, Nathaniel "Sweetwater" Clifton with the Knicks, Earl Lloyd with the Washington Capitols. During this period, the Minneapolis Lakers, led by center George Mikan, won five NBA Championships and established themselves as the league's first dynasty. To encourage shooting and discourage stalling, the league introduced the 24-second shot clock in 1954.
If a team does not attempt to score a field goal within 24 seconds of obtaining the ball, play is stopped and the ball given to its opponent. In 1957, rookie center Bill Russell joined the Boston Celtics, which featured guard Bob Cousy and coach Red Auerbach, went on to lead the club to eleven NBA titles in thirteen seasons. Center Wilt Chamberlain entered the league with the Warriors in 1959 and became a dominant individual star of the 1960s, setting new single game records in scoring and rebounding. Russell's rivalry with Chamberlain became one of the greatest rivalries in the history of American team sports; the 1960s were dominated by the Celtics. Led by Russell, Bob Cousy and coach Red Auerbach, Boston won eight straight championships in the NBA from 1959 to 1966; this championship streak is the longest in NBA history. They did not win the title in 1966–67, but regained it in the 1967–68 season and repeated in 1969; the domination totaled nine of the ten championship banners of the 1960s.
Through this period, the NBA continued to evolve with the shift of the Minneapolis Lakers to Los Angeles, the Philadelphia Warriors to San Francisco, the Syracuse Nationals to Philadelphia to become the Philadelphia 76ers, the St. Louis Hawks moving to Atlanta, as well as the addition of its first expansion franchises; the Chicago Packers (now Wa
