Toronto Huskies

• 1. Introduction

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  On the 1st of November, 1946, the Toronto Huskies hosted the first game in Basketball Association of America history. They lost 68-66 to the New York Knickerbockers before a crowd of 7,090. Ossie Schectman put the opening basket of that entire new league through the net, and he did it against Toronto. The Huskies were disbanded by the summer of 1947. Toronto would not see professional basketball again for 48 years. What brought this franchise to life at such a pivotal moment, and what undid it so quickly?

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• 2. Arena Operators and a New League

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  In 1946, a group of arena operators met in New York to establish what they called the Basketball Association of America. Most were already involved with National Hockey League buildings and wanted basketball to fill empty calendar dates. The only Canadian invited to that meeting was the delegation from Maple Leaf Gardens. Frank Selke Sr. was managing the Gardens while Conn Smythe was overseas. Selke contacted Ben Newman, who had coached two Canadian national championship basketball teams and had already staged a game inside the Gardens. The franchise cost approximately $150,000, funded largely by Bay Street investors. Eric Cradock, who co-owned the Montreal Alouettes football team, Harold Shannon, and Newman were the major partners.

  Lew Hayman was named managing director. He was the Alouettes' coach and general manager, and had starred in basketball at Syracuse University. Charles Watson was president of the team, with Salter Hayden and Annis Stukus also holding front office roles. Future all-star Ed Sadowski was signed to serve as player-coach, bringing on-court leadership to a roster built from scratch.

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• 3. Worst Possible Home Dates

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  "I honestly thought we could have made a go of the team," Newman once said, "but we were given the worst possible home dates." The difficulties arrived early. Newman's father fell ill soon after the opening game, forcing Newman to leave the franchise. He returned to St. Catharines, Ontario, to take over the family scrap and steel metal business. Crowds stayed low from the start. On opening night, management had offered free admission to anyone taller than George Nostrand, the tallest Husky at 6 feet 8 inches. As the season wore on, they tried other promotions, including free stockings for women in attendance. Local media showed little interest, and nothing seemed to help. The Toronto Star published an estimate that owners had lost $100,000 across one season of operations.

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• 4. A Month, Four Coaches

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  Ed Sadowski had the highest scoring rate of any Huskies player, averaging 19.1 points per game over his first 10 games. But the wins were not coming, and the locker room was fracturing. Three weeks in, observers noted the players had broken into two or three cliques. They barely spoke to each other. Sadowski's coaching was challenged openly. Just a month after opening night, he quit. Lew Hayman stepped in for one game. Dick Fitzgerald, who was himself a player on the roster, handled the bench for three more before a permanent hire was made.

  Red Rolfe arrived with credentials from an unusual combination of sports. He had played in Major League Baseball and had also coached the basketball team at Yale University. Hayman then traded Sadowski's playing rights to the Cleveland Rebels for Leo Mogus, at the time one of the top scorers in the league. Hayman had already traded George Nostrand to the Cleveland Rebels in a separate deal, receiving Kleggie Hermsen, who stood 6 feet 9 inches. In February 1947, the Huskies acquired Ralph Siewert from the St. Louis Bombers. At 7 feet 1 inch, Siewert was the tallest player in the entire league.

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• 5. The Roster's Ledger

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  Ralph Siewert averaged just 1.1 points per game with the Huskies and posted the lowest field goal percentage on the team. Mike McCarron was the scoring leader, finishing with 649 points across 60 games. McCarron and Dick Fitzgerald were the only two players to appear in every game that season. Hank Biasatti and Gino Sovran were the only Canadians on the roster. Each played just six games.

  Of the 20 players who suited up for the Huskies, only five went on to appear in 10 or more BAA or NBA games afterward. They were Sadowski, Mogus, Hermsen, Nostrand, and Dick Schulz. None of the head coaches or interim coaches who worked the Toronto bench would coach another game in the league after the Huskies. Hermsen outlasted them all. He retired in 1953 as a member of the Indianapolis Olympians, the last active player from the Huskies' roster.

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• 6. The Draft and the Fold

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  At The Leland Hotel, the Huskies participated in the inaugural 1947 BAA draft, with losses from their first season thought to total $60,000. With the second pick overall, they selected Glen Selbo, a guard and forward from the University of Wisconsin. Red Rocha from Oregon State University was also drafted and later traded to the St. Louis Bombers. Wimpy Quinn, a former Major League Baseball player from the University of Oregon, was another selection. Frank Broyles of the Georgia School of Technology was drafted as well. He went on to become a college football coach and athletic director. Paul Hoffman from Purdue University rounded out a notable group of selections. None of these players would ever take the floor for Toronto.

  On the 27th of July 1947, the Huskies and the Pittsburgh Ironmen folded on the same day. The Detroit Falcons had ceased operations on July 9, and the Cleveland Rebels on June 9. Those four were the first franchises in the history of what is now the NBA to shut down. The Huskies' departure left no immediate successor in Toronto, but the name itself had not been entirely forgotten.

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• 7. The Name That Almost Returned

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  In 1995, when Toronto was awarded a new NBA franchise, the name "Huskies" was among the options management considered. The choice was rejected when it became clear that no logo could be designed for the Huskies without closely resembling that of the Minnesota Timberwolves. The team became the Toronto Raptors instead. A group of fans later launched a campaign calling for the franchise to revert to the Huskies name, running a dedicated website at TorontoHuskies.org.

  On the 8th of December, 2009, the Raptors introduced a throwback jersey honoring the original Huskies. Those jerseys replicated the Huskies look with longer shorts than the originals, and were worn in six games during the 2009-10 season. On the 23rd of August, 2016, the Raptors unveiled the Huskies throwbacks as new official alternates. Chinese New Year jerseys were introduced at the same time. An alternate floor at Air Canada Centre was used on those retro nights. It featured the Huskies dog logo at centre court and the Huskies logomark at each end. The TorontoHuskies.org campaign has one stated goal: to have the Raptors franchise revert to the historical Huskies name.

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