Minneapolis Millers Hockey
The Minneapolis Millers was the name of most of our city’s minor league ice hockey teams from 1916-1962. The first Millers team was started by a high scoring center from Michigan named Nick Kahler. His new team was made up of mostly Canadian imports. The hockey team was named after the Minneapolis Millers City Baseball team. Saint Paul’s old minor league team was called the Saints. The Millers were a successful team and played several teams from the NHA which was based primarily in the Eastern United States and Canada. Unfortunately the team didn’t have a home rink to play on, and no league affiliation for their inaugural first two seasons. The squad played a lot of games on the road. In 1915 they had a temporary home on a flooded roller rink on the corner of Plymouth and Washington. After the 1915-1916 season the Millers moved to the Hippodrome at the State Fair grounds in St. Paul. The team folded after only 2 seasons.
Minneapolis didn’t have a hockey team again until the 1920-1921 season. That year a newly formed United States Amateur Hockey Association made agreements with the International Skating Union, Canadian Amateur Hockey Association, and the Amateur Athletic Union to recognize it’s league winner and the “National Champion”. The USAHA was recognized as the sole governing body for amateur hockey in the US. The new league had very little in the way of player regulation. Nick Kahler rejoined the Millers again for the 1920-1921 season and then the Millers again folded from 1921-1923.
Minneapolis Millers Hockey Team 1926
Another Millers team originated in the Central Hockey League as a semi-professional team from the 1925-26 season. The team moved to the American Hockey Association along with other CHL teams, and played there from 1926 to 1931. The Millers then switched to a revived Central Hockey League based locally in Minnesota. After the CHL’s collapse, the Millers joined the AHA again and played from 1935 to 1942. The team was abandoned during World War II, and then revived in the United States Hockey League from 1945-50. The Millers left the league in 1950 and joined the AAHL for one season in 1951-1952. The final installment for the Minneapolis Millers came when the Denver Mavericks moved to the Twin Cities with International Hockey League (IHL) and became the “new” Millers 1959. The IHL and the Millers a few good seasons and posted some great team records. They lost the IHL Championship series on 2 occasions in 1959-1960 to St. Paul, and again in 1961-1962 to Fort Wayne. The Millers and Saints final season in the IHL was in 1961-1962.
Millers' jerseys from 1947
