Orixtal Hockey League: Difference between revisions

Despite the massive talent seen throughout the WHL, they would only account for winning two Cups throughout the league's existence; the Ominasky Outlaws in 1955–56, who finished the 72–game regular season with a W-L-T record of 61–6–5 and sweeping the WHL playoffs, and the Topaqoí Wahoo in 1964–65, led by [[Willy Schaefer]], taking down the CHL champion Antakee Monsters in the first non-OHL Finals in Cup history. The CHL would only see one champion, the Santa Maria Blazers in 1965–66. Led by star forward [[Fyodor Koshchev]], and goaltender/Saukhin King [[King Apaha'enia|Apaha'enia]], the Blazers would take down the Centurions in one of the greatest upsets in Cup history. In 1964, two CHL clubs; the East Sachia Sharks and the Novo Sierra Rangers, were suspended from the league for the 1964–65 season after Ceylonian state investigations found that both clubs were laundering money earned through illegal pyramid schemes. In protest, the Saqauwee Ceylonianos would sit out the second half of the season, leaving the Antakee Monsters and the Santa Maria Blazers as the remaining CHL clubs for the season. For both the 1964–65 and 1965–66 seasons, the OHL and CHL would unofficially merge. The Monsters and Blazers would still play a championship series to decide the champion of Ceylonia, with Antakee winning in 1965 in 7 games, and Santa Maria winning the next year in 5 games.

The increasing modernization of the OHL and WHL would earn the nickname "Golden Era of Hockey" for the 1970s and 80s. In 1969, the OHL would sign its first ever television broadcasting contract with [[Qabóri Broadcasting System]], the public broadcaster in Tierrador. Before the contract was signed, people were only able to listen to hockey games through the radio, or by reading their local newspaper the following day. The OHL, now featuring teams in much more popular markets, had accumulated nearly double the revenue of its counterpart, the WHL, in the 1969–70 season. This would begin the downfall of the WHL. On January 9, 1970, the OHL announced it would be adding an expansion team to [[Alstin (City)|Alstin City]] for the 1970–71 season. The new team, nicknamed the [[Alstin Sentinels]], had created a brand new market in the [[Alstin|United Republic]]. The OHL had also signed a second media deal with Alstinian broadcaster [[ABS Corporation|ABS]], who agreed to broadcast all OHL matches in Alstin, though mostly favoring the Sentinels. The following year, the OHL would add the [[Wadičaq Phantoms]] and a second team in Taisgol, the [[Taisgol Marksmen|Marksmen]]. Before the start of the 1971–72 season, the Taisgol Spires had filed a lawsuit against both the Marksmen and the OHL, claiming that the league had violated its own collective bargaining agreement by allowing the Marksmen to play in [[Hacienda, Taisgol]], a neighborhood of the city which was directly in the Spires' market. Eventually, the [[Imperial Court of Tierrador|Imperial Court]] sided with the Spires, ordering the Marksmen to pay massive indemnities to the Spires. This would kickstart a fierce rivalry between the two, known now as the [[Cross-River Classic]]. The Marksmen would eventually move to [[Eastern Bend, Taisgol|Eastern Bend]], 25 miles from [[Woderq, Taisgol|Woderq]], where the Spires played.