The Buffalo Memorial Auditorium
October 14, 1970: The NBA had 3 new expansion teams for the 1970-71 season, and 2 of them debut against each other. The Buffalo Braves defeat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 107-92, at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, on the 30th Anniversary of The Aud's opening.
The original starting lineups: For Buffalo, guards Emmette "Em: Bryant and Herm Gilliam, forwards Don May and John Hummer, and center Nate Bowman; for Cleveland, guards Bobby "Bingo" Smith and John Warren, forwards John Johnson and Len Chappell, and center Walt Wesley.
Both teams will struggle that 1st season, the Cavs especially so. But both would become Playoff teams by the mid-1970s. The Cavs took until 2016 to get an NBA title, are now 1-3 in NBA Finals, and are 7-15 in NBA Finals games.
But that beats what happened to the Braves: They were moved in 1978 to become the San Diego Clippers, and in 1984 to become the Los Angeles Clippers, and they've never even played in a Conference Finals.
The Braves had Bob McAdoo for 4 seasons, and Moses Malone and Adrian Dantley for 1 each. Each of them was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
The next day, October 15, another expansion team played their 1st home game. After 2 road games, their opener on October 10, a 2-1 win over the Penguins in Pittsburgh and a 3-0 loss to the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden, the Buffalo Sabres lost to the Montreal Canadiens, 3-0 at The Aud.
Punch Imlach, Roger Crozier, Reg Fleming
The day after the Sabres' debut, October 16, the 3rd NBA expansion team, the Portland Trail Blazers, made their debut. They, too, beat the Cavaliers, 115-112 at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Portland, Oregon.
The Sabres had hired former Toronto Maple Leafs coach and general manager George "Punch" Imlach to hold the same roles. He quit as head coach in the middle of the 2nd season, but remained as GM.
They missed the Playoffs in their 1st 4 seasons, but reached the Stanley Cup Finals in their 5th, 1974-75. They lost to the Philadelphia Flyers in 6 games. They won Division titles in 1975 and 1980, and reached the Stanley Cup Semifinals in 1980.
In 1996, they moved to a new arena, known at its opening as the Marine Midland Arena until 2000, then the HSBC Arena until 2011, the First Niagara Center until 2016, and since then as the KeyBank Center. They've won Division titles in 1997, 2007 and 2010; reached the Eastern Conference Finals in 1998, 1999, 2006, 2007; and reached the Stanley Cup Finals in 1999, losing to the Dallas Stars in 6 games. But they haven't made the Playoffs since 2011. (UPDATE: It took the Sabres until 2026 to make the Playoffs again.)
In 1950, Buffalo peaked with a population of 580,000. In 1960, it was 532,000. As late as the 1970 Census, it was 462,000, and it had teams in the NBA, the NBA and the NHL, and a Class AAA baseball team, the Buffalo Bisons.
Downtown Buffalo, New York, with Lake Erie in the background
But, well before the arrival of the Braves and the Sabres, and even before the 1960 arrival of the Buffalo Bills with the founding of the American Football League, the seeds of the city's doom had been planted. In 1959, the St. Lawrence Seaway opened, with the Welland Canal cutting through the Niagara Falls region on the Ontario side, bypassing the Niagara River's dangerous falls to connect Lake Erie with Lake Ontario.
After that, Buffalo's port and barge canal became largely irrelevant. Shipbuilding wound down in the 1960s, due to reduced waterfront activity, ending an industry which had been part of the city's economy since 1812. Downsizing of the steel mills was attributed to the threat of higher wages and unionization efforts. Racial tensions culminated in a riot on the East Side in the Summer of 1967. Suburbanization led to the selection of the town of Amherst for the new campus of the University of Buffalo by 1970.
Unwilling to modernize its plant, Bethlehem Steel began cutting thousands of jobs in nearby Lackawanna during the mid-1970s, before closing it in 1983. The region lost at least 70,000 jobs between 1970 and 1984. By 1980, the population of Buffalo had dropped to 358,000; by 1990, 328,000. The smaller Western New York cities of Rochester and Syracuse were also hammered by the Rust Belt slowdown.
As a result, Buffalo simply couldn't support teams in every sport. As I said, the Braves moved in 1978. Attendance for the Sabres suffered, and they might have had to move had not people from Ontario, unable to get into Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens and unable to get a team for Hamilton, come over the Peace Bridge to watch the Sabres.
The Bills had moved to a stadium in suburban Orchard Park in 1973, and in 1988, the Bisons also left aging War Memorial Stadium, moving into a new downtown ballpark, now known as Sahlen Field. It was built with 18,000 seats, but with the ability to be expanded to 40,000, and so the city bid for an expansion team in 1991, along with Denver, Miami, Orlando, Tampa Bay and Washington.
But Denver and Miami were chosen to begin play in 1993. And when Tampa Bay and Phoenix were chosen in 1995 to begin play in 1998, that seemed to be the last chance for Buffalo to have Major League Baseball. And yet, Canada's COVID restrictions meant that the Toronto Blue Jays played "home games" at Sahlen Field in 2020 and the 1st half of 2021, briefly returning Buffalo to MLB for the 1st time since the Federal League of 1914 and '15.
In 2010, the city's population bottomed out at 261,000, having dropped in 6 consecutive decades. By 2020, it was back up to 278,000. Governors Andrew Cuomo and Kathy Hochul, a Buffalo native, got the New York State government to invest more in the city. In 2017, the city's zoning code was reformed, including the elimination of costly parking minimums, which had hindered development. And, like its neighbors Pittsburgh and Cleveland, the health care industry has led to economic growth in Buffalo.
The Sabres have a relatively new downtown arena, and the Bills are working on a new stadium, across the street from their current home in Orchard Park. Neither team is going to move anytime soon. But neither is Buffalo likely to ever get new teams in MLB or the NBA.
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October 14, 1970 was a Wednesday. Singer Jon Seda was born.
There were 4 other NBA games played that opening night:
* The New York Knicks beat the Cincinnati Royals, 128-104 at the Cincinnati Gardens.
* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Chicago Bulls, 110-107 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.
* The Baltimore Bullets beat the San Diego Rockets, 123-105 at the Baltimore Civic Center (now the CFG Bank Arena.)
* And the Detroit Pistons beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 123-117 at the Seattle Center Coliseum. Bob Rule led all scorers on the night with 37 points.
There was 1 game in the American Basketball Association: The Utah Stars beat their arch-rivals, the Denver Rockets, 134-99 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Stars went on to win the ABA Championship in that 1970-71 season. However, they went out of business in 1975. The Rockets survived, changing their name to the Denver Nuggets, to avoid confusion with the NBA's Houston Rockets, and joined the NBA in 1976.
In addition to the aforementioned Sabres-Rangers game, there were 3 games in the NHL:
* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the St. Louis Blues, 7-3 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.
* The Chicago Black Hawks beat the Vancouver Canucks, 8-2 at the Chicago Stadium. Bobby Hull and Dennis Hull each scored a goal: The Golden Jet and the Silver Jet, respectively. The Canucks were also an expansion team, and had debuted on October 9, losing to Los Angeles, 3-1 at home at the Pacific Coliseum.
* And the Boston Bruins beat the Los Angeles Kings, 8-5 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood,
California.
Game 4 of the World Series was played at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. The Baltimore Orioles had taken the 1st 3 games from the Cincinnati Reds, but a Lee May home run in the 8th inning gives the Big Red Machine a 6-5 win, and keeps them alive.
It also ends a 17-game winning streak for the O's: They had won their last 11 games of the regular season, swept the Minnesota Twins in 3 straight in the American League Championship Series, and taken the 1st 3 games against the Reds. May later played for them, helping them win the American League Pennant in 1979.
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The next day, October 15, a Thursday, rapper Ginuwine was born. His real name showed he was named after a basketball legend: Elgin Baylor Lumpkin.
Game 5 of the World Series was played at Memorial Stadium, and the Orioles clinched, winning, 9-3. Mike Cuellar went the distance for the win, and was backed by home runs from Frank Robinson and Merv Rettenmund.
There was 1 game in the NBA: The Phoenix Suns beat the Boston Celtics, 119-110 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.
There were 3 games in the ABA:
* The New York Nets lost to the Pittsburgh Condors, 105-102 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.
* The Miami Floridians beat the Carolina Cougars, 105-97 at the Miami Beach Auditorium.
* And the Indiana Pacers beat their rivals, the Kentucky Colonels, 127-95 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum (now the Corteva Coliseum) in Indianapolis.
There were 3 games in the NHL, in addition to the Sabres' home debut:
* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Vancouver Canucks, 5-4 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.
* The Chicago Black Hawks beat their arch-rivals, the Detroit Red Wings, 2-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.
* And the Minnesota North Stars beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-2 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis
suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.
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