The Blades were a member of the International Hockey League for eleven years. The IHL (also known as “The I”) was a minor league just below the National Hockey League, most of the time it served as a feeder league to the NHL.

The International Hockey League was founded in 1945. It started as a four-team league in the Detroit, Michigan/Windsor, Ontario area. It was created as a place for the Original 6 of the NHL to have developmental teams. On December 5, 1945 a meeting was held at the Norton-Palmer Hotel in Windsor, Ontario with Jack Adams, other Red Wings officials, and other local non-hockey professionals. They created the league to give opportunities for locals returning from the War to play with the thought that it would eventually expand. 

The International Hockey League started play with four teams, local to the Detroit-Windsor area. The first IHL champions were the Detroit Auto Club. They beat the Detroit Bright’s Goodyears 2-1 on March 2, 1946 to win the first Turner Cup.

In the 1950s, it became a Midwest bus league with teams in Flint, Fort Wayne, Muskegon, and Toledo. By the 1980s the league experienced significant expansion across the United States. In 1984, the league absorbed the Central Hockey League (the first iteration of that league). This added some travel distance for teams, as they acquired the Salt League Golden Eagles with this move. Salt Lake City was 1,600 miles away from the IHL’s eastern-most team Toledo. With that expansion of the league, the expansion fee to join climbed up to $6 million. With rising travel costs, small-market teams like Muskegon, Flint, and Saginaw couldn’t survive.

When the Blades joined the league in 1990, they started out as an independent team without an NHL affiliation. But, the next season the San Jose Sharks chose Kansas City to be their affiliate, providing the Blades with the majority of their roster. Much of the IHL operated this way, but as the 90s went on, this started to change.

The IHL started to add teams in major league cities like San Francisco, Chicago, and Detroit in the mid 90s. They added teams in Canada with Winnipeg’s Manitoba Moose and the Quebec Rafales. There was talk of truly making the league international by establishing teams overseas. All of this put a strain on the league’s relationship with the National Hockey League. NHL teams began to pull their affiliations, in favor of the American Hockey League. The Blades lost their affiliation with the Sharks before the 1996-97 season.

The loss affiliations meant teams were dealing with more expenses like coach and player salaries. At this point, it had become $7 million to buy an expansion IHL franchise. This all made it difficult for the league to move into the future, because it had priced some possible markets out of the league.

So, with that… the league’s last game was played on May 26, 2001. After 56 seasons, the IHL officially disbanded June 4, 2001. Several of the IHL teams moved on and joined the American Hockey League (AHL). The Blades didn’t. They fell victim to the fact their owner had two franchises. The AHL didn’t allow multi-team ownership. So, with that the Blades were toast, just like the IHL.

The IHL enjoyed 56 years of existence. And just like that old Johnny Cash song, they’d been everywhere. The IHL had teams in Akron, Albany, Atlanta, Chatham, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Denver, Des Moines, Detroit, Flint, Fort Wayne, Grand Rapids, Houston, Huntington, Indianapolis, Johnstown, Kalamazoo, Kansas City, Lansing, Las Vegas, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Louisville, Marion, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Muncie, Muskegon, Omaha, Orlando, Peoria, Phoenix, Port Huron, Quad City, Saginaw, St. Paul, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco, Sarnia, Toledo, Troy, Windsor, and Winnipeg.