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Old Team Tuesday is a weekly feature taking a look at former teams that have gone by the wayside. This week’s edition is about as ultimate as it gets. ********************************************** The concept of a professional ultimate Frisbee league isn’t as far out as you or Marty McFly might expect. In fact, it’s a reality that found a home in Western New York in 2012. The American Ultimate Disc League prepared for its first season set with eight teams stretched from the east coast to the Midwest. One of those teams was the Buffalo Hunters, who played in the AUDL’s Eastern Division alongside the Philadelphia Spinners, the Connecticut Constitution, and the Rhode Island Rampage. They took the moniker “Hunters” as a tribute to Hunter Kelly, the son of former Buffalo Bills quarterback Jim Kelly who passed away at the age of eight from Krabbe disease. 10 percent of all the team’s profits for the season were to be donated to Hunter’s Hope, a charitable organization the Kelly...

Old Team Tuesday is a weekly feature taking a look at former teams that have gone by the wayside. This week’s edition does not look at the history of a single team, but revisits the entire scope of upper-level soccer in Western New York as a whole. ********************************************** The relationship between Buffalo and soccer has been more unstable than a marriage to Zsa Zsa Gabor. Nine teams have set up shop here, with few finding any measure of success and most being forced to close down or move away. Now, as Americans finally seem to be falling for the beautiful game, that sentiment is echoed in Western New York, where Buffalonians finally have a team they can cozy up to. Let’s start in 1976, near the tail end of Gabor’s sixth marriage. The Buffalo Blazers of the Canadian-based National Soccer League opened play at War Memorial Stadium. A mediocre first season didn’t disparage the team, and in 1977, the club finally made progress, going 12-3-3 to wind up th...

Old Team Tuesday is a weekly feature taking a look at former teams that have gone by the wayside. This week’s edition revisits the entire history of soccer in Western New York. This is the original, unedited version of the same topic that appeared on queencityblitzers.com on April 23, 2014. ********************************************** The relationship between Buffalo and soccer has been more unstable than a marriage to Zsa Zsa Gabor. Nine teams have set up shop here, with few finding any measure of success and most being forced to close down or move away. Now, as Americans finally seem to be falling for the beautiful game, that sentiment is echoed in western New York, where Buffalonians finally have a team they can cozy up to. Our Past: Let’s start in 1976, near the tail end of Gabor’s sixth marriage. The Buffalo Blazers of the Canadian-based National Soccer League opened play at War Memorial Stadium. A mediocre first season didn’t disparage the team, and in 1977,...

Old Team Tuesday is a weekly feature taking a look at former teams that have gone by the wayside. This week's edition uncovers some history about the most famous basketball team you’ve never heard of. ********************************************** A basketball team comprised entirely of deaf and mute players with no home venue. That’s who the Buffalo Silents were. A group of players that spent their winters barnstorming through Ohio and Pennsylvania. That’s who the Buffalo Silents were. The most unheard of team in Buffalo basketball history (with plenty of great puns to pick from). That’s who the Buffalo Silents were. The earliest recorded game for the Silents took place on March 11, 1917, when the team traveled to Rochester, New York to play another squad of deaf players. It wasn’t until 1922, though, that the team found its niche. Tommy Hunt was the big draw when the Silents opened up a midwest road trip in Fremont, Ohio. On December 26, 1922, more than 6...

Old Team Tuesday will be a weekly feature taking a look at former teams that have gone by the wayside. The first edition of this segment takes a look at one of the quirkiest stories in Western New York football history. ********************************************** For most Buffalo football fans, 1921 is next to meaningless. The few and far between who can rattle off facts about the Staley Swindle will know that was the season that George Halas stole the league title from the Buffalo All-Americans, the pre-eminent professional gridiron team in Western New York. However, fewer and much further between will also be able to say that in 1921 – for one day – Buffalo had two NFL teams. --- Early beginnings --- The New York Pro Football League was formed in the early 1900s, and in 1916, was joined by the All-Tonawanda All-Stars. Led by Syracuse legend and Tonawanda native Tam Rose, the team posted a 9-7 victory over the Rochester Jeffersons to claim the 1917 league cham...