At long last, the Blues are back in the Stanley Cup finals. By Matt Bonesteel Matt Bonesteel Reporter for the Early Lead Email Bio Follow May 22 at 1:18 PM The St. Louis Blues secured a spot in the Stanley Cup finals Tuesday night, finishing off the San Jose Sharks with a 5-1 win in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals. They have been there before but not since 1970.
Worried that the league’s small geographic footprint would hinder its chances of obtaining a national U.S. television contract, the NHL decided in the mid-1960s to double its numbers from six to 12 teams. In February 1966, it awarded new franchises to five metropolitan areas — San Francisco/Oakland, Los Angeles, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia — and a “conditional” franchise to St. Louis, even though no one from the city actually had submitted a bid.
Finally, after failing to find anyone who was both interested and rich enough at St. Louis-area country clubs, and with an NHL-imposed deadline looming, a consortium headed by local insurance tycoon Sid Salomon Jr. and his son stepped up to purchase the arena — they paid the Blackhawks’ owners $4 million for the stadium and spent another $2 million to renovate it — and fund the expansion team, which began play in the 1967-68 season.The Blues were immediately successful . . .
But the other three teams that either matched or surpassed St. Louis’s streak all went to the Stanley Cup finals at least three times. The Blues didn’t get there once, making it past the second round only twice over that run and losing conference finals to the Flames in 1986 and Avalanche in 2001. “They treated the players to all-expenses-paid Florida vacations when seasons ended and bought them gold wristwatches for scoring hat tricks, etc.,” Dan O’Neill of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote in 2012 . “When Red Berenson scored six goals in a game on Nov. 7, 1968, ownership presented the outdoor enthusiast with a new station wagon, a canoe attached to the top and a Browning 20-gauge shotgun inside.
What followed in 1983 and beyond was one of the strangest ownership journeys in U.S. pro sports history. Sick of losing money, Ralston Purina announced its intention to sell the team in January of that year to Saskatoon-based Batoni-Hunter Enterprises Ltd., which almost immediately declared it would be moving the Blues to Saskatchewan in time for the 1983-84 season.
Because the Sharks love to make it to the playoffs, only to choke HARD when they get there. (But I'm not bitter... 😒)
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