Note: Years ago, I had a post about "White Whales" for programs. A Port Huron Clippers program was one of them. I saw this on eBay last week and grabbed it immediately.
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1987-88 AAHL Playoffs
Clippers vs. Danville Fighting Saints |
The 1980s were a bit of a "lost decade" for hockey in Port Huron. Following the folding of the IHL's Port Huron Flags in 1981, the city was represented by the Port Huron Jr. Flags from 1981-84. The Jr. Flags were a successful team in its first two seasons, going to the national championship tournament and dominating the Great Lakes Jr. B Hockey League. Their final season was a different story, as the team went 3-42-3 in the much stronger Western Jr. B Hockey League, based out of Ontario. Despite being welcomed back by that league for 1984-85, McMorran Arena folded the Jr. Flags when they could not get permission from USA Hockey to continue playing in that circuit. Other than high school hockey and the occasional senior league game, Port Huron went without a team to call its own from 1984-87.
That changed in the summer of 1987, when the All-American Hockey League placed an expansion franchise in McMorran Arena for the upcoming season. The team was called the Port Huron Clippers, and would be owned by Trenton native Grant Judd. Judd actually put in quadruple duty with the Clippers, as he was also general manager and player/coach. McMorran Place General Manager Morris Snider made it clear that the facility had no ownership ties to the new team, clearly remembering the heavy losses the IHL's Flags (and the City of Port Huron) absorbed in that team's last several years.
The AAHL was a tier or two lower than the IHL, and operated mostly out of the Midwest for most of its existence, including teams in Jackson and Down River, Michigan. In 1987, the AAHL also added two teams from the defunct Atlantic Coast League, the Carolina Thunderbirds and Virginia Lancers. Rounding out the league was the Miami Valley Sabres, who played out of Troy, Ohio's Hobart Arena. Partway through the 1987-88 season, the Michigan (Down River) Stars ceased operations, and the Johnstown Chiefs were added for the final 26 games of the season.
The Clippers, and the AAHL as a whole, seemed to be nothing more than a second-rate organization. Port Huron stumbled to a 9-28-1 record in their maiden voyage, last place in the AAHL (not counting the defunct Michigan Stars). Even more embarrassing, the Johnstown Chiefs, who only played 26 games, finished higher in the standings than the Clippers! Partway through the season, Clippers home games were being rescheduled by the AAHL, despite the protest of player/coach/GM/owner Judd.
The Clippers had a a decent offense, scoring 212 goals in 38 games, an impressive 5.57 per game. However, that was only good enough for sixth-most in the AAHL. A major contributor to the Clippers firepower was Judd himself, who scored 61 goals and 116 points in 38 games. Judd still holds the Port Huron hockey record for most goals in a season, and may hold that mark for a long time. There's a steep dropoff after Judd's numbers, as John Hayward was next, with an impressive 27 goals and 56 points in just 28 games. Judd and Hayward were the only two 20-goal scorers for the Clippers, but four other players scored at least 10.
Defense sunk the Clippers, as Port Huron allowed a league-worst 351 goals, an incredible 9.28 GAA. Go ahead and look through the archives of the Times Herald at Newspapers.com, there were a lot of high scores in Clippers games, from 9-8 to 15-2. Defense was optional in the AAHL. Look at the GAA for the two netminders, Keith Walk and Chris Wright. Even on bottom-feeding teams today, you never see numbers that sky high.
That night's opponent was the Danville Fighting Saints. Danville finished 15-20-0, but had no trouble sweeping away the Clippers in the postseason.
Most of these players on both rosters had little experience outside of the AAHL. Chris DeLabbio played for the Flint Generals, Flint Spirits and Saginaw Generals of the IHL prior to finishing his hockey career with the Clippers. Scott Robins got as far as 71 games spread over parts of three seasons with the Flint Spirits.
For Danville, almost all their players played the majority (or all of) their career with the Fighting Saints. Goaltender Gary Wilett played with the Carolina Thunderbirds in the ECHL in 1988-89, helping them win the first Riley Cup championship.
There are Port Huron hockey ties to the two main advertisements on this roster sheet. The Fogcutter restaurant sponsored a Junior team, the Port Huron Fogcutters, from 1971-76. WHLS was the radio home of the old Port Huron Flags and several future Port Huron hockey teams. Former owner of WHLS, John F. Wismer, was the initial owner of the IHL's Port Huron Flags.
Here is the club directory for the 1987-88 Clippers. As you can see, the team had a pretty small staff. Grant Judd was not only President and owner of the Clippers, but also the General Manager and Head Coach!
McMorran Arena's capacity is listed as 3,300, with standing room crowds at 3,500. No need to worry, there were plenty of seats available right up to game time. Even cheap tickets (at $4 for adults and $2 for seniors and children) and the chance to win the title to a new car in Score-O could not attract Port Huron's fickle fanbase to Clippers home games.
Attendance was (and still is) an issue in Port Huron, as the Flags lost six figures in their last seven seasons of existence, and the Jr. Flags saw even smaller crowds (but a much smaller budget). The Clippers never came remotely close to even filling a section of McMorran during their short stay in Port Huron. After drawing an opening night crowd of 1,000, attendance collapsed to about an average of 150-200 per game (according to the Times Herald). The team likely could have played at the Pavilion (now SC4 Fieldhouse) and still struggled to fill that rink. Seeing that the team was not even drawing flies, the AAHL rescheduled a few Clippers home games, despite the protests of management.
This is the map of the All-American Hockey League for 1987-88. I will give the AAHL credit for this: their geographic footprint makes far more sense than the Federal Prospects Hockey League's does, at least when Port Huron is concerned. For the 2025-26 season, the Port Huron Prowlers' closest rival is the Indiana Sentinels, who are about 6 hours away. In the 1987-88 AAHL season, the Clippers had four teams within four hours from Port Huron. Now, whether any of those teams were profitable that year is anyone's guess.
Port Huron would face teams in several of these AAHL cities in the next few decades. Danville was home to the FPHL's Dashers from 2011-20 and 2024-25, one of the Prowlers' fiercest rivals. Troy, Ohio is about a half-hour away from Dayton, which was home to the UHL/IHL's Dayton Ice Bandits and Dayton Gems and the FPHL's Dayton Demolition. Winston-Salem is currently home to the Carolina Thunderbirds of the FPHL, and previously the UHL's Winston-Salem Ice Hawks. In a different tie to Port Huron, the UHL's Port Huron Beacons relocated to Roanoke, VA, for the 2005-06 season, playing one year as the Roanoke Valley Vipers before folding.
As for this program...for one thing, it's incredibly rare. I have been on eBay for about 25 years, and have only seen two Clippers artifacts before this program popped up last week. I saw one program years ago and a hockey puck, that's it. Considering the team was drawing worse than rec league teams, that shouldn't be too surprising. It's a larger program than I expected, 20 pages all in black and white. The biggest thing is to actually see what the logo looked like. I've never seen any images of the logo or the jerseys from that team. It's pretty basic, your typical hockey program stuff, from rule descriptions and referee signals to the schedule. No articles or even the typical letter from the commissioner or the mayor of the city.
There are afar more advertisements than I expected. Local ads include the Zebra Lounge, Ram's Horn Restaurant, The Sport Shop, Hodgins-Liebler Ford Mercury of Yale, Cawood Auto, Bev's Place and the Port Huron Hospital.
Aftermath: The Clippers ceased operations after their inaugural season in Port Huron, due to incredibly low attendance and financial losses. Owner Grant Judd noted that numerous businesses that initially pledged support to the fledgling team did not come through. McMorran Place GM Morris Snider was unimpressed. "I wouldn't have brought them back even if they wanted to return," he stated upon hearing the team was folding. Snider, former GM of the IHL Flags from 1969-81, claimed he hadn't heard a word from Judd since midway through the season, calling the Clippers operation "a fiasco". Port Huron would not return to professional hockey until the Detroit Falcons of the Colonial Hockey League relocated to McMorran Arena for the 1996-97 season. McMorran is currently home to the FPHL's Port Huron Prowlers, who will start their 11th season of operation, second-longest in Port Huron history.
As for the AAHL, three of its strongest teams, the Carolina Thunderbirds, Virginia Lancers and Johnstown Chiefs, left to form the East Coast Hockey League after the 1987-88 campaign. All three franchises still exist, albeit in different cities. The AAHL, now down to three teams (and losing their professional status), quickly cobbled together two expansion franchises (Springfield Capitals and Lincoln Park Patriots) and limped to the finish line in 1988-89, with the Miami Valley Sabres winning both the regular season and playoff championships. The league would fold after the season. References:
Port Huron Clippers statistics from the 1987-88 Clippers program
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