The Cleveland Devils??

I don't have a ton of information on this because I only have one source, but it is interesting to see how it could have changed hockey history and even could have resulted in the hockey team that I love-playing in the state I love.

Gene Kiczek wrote two books (I own both) on Cleveland hockey-the first on the AHL Barons and the second on the NHL Barons, WHA Crusaders, and other teams to play in Cleveland.
The WHA was the second league in the 1970s and was losing money hand over fist despite signing top-notch talent.

The Cleveland Crusaders played in a beautiful new building, the Richfield Coliseum, made the playoffs for all four years of their existence and had terrific uniforms and logo, but were still a WHA team.
The Kansas City Scouts were just two years old, but drowning in red ink with an awful expansion team and had owners looking to bail out.
Quietly the owners of the Scouts and Crusaders owner Nick Mileti began to work out a deal that would see the Scouts and Crusaders merge their rosters, play in Cleveland as the Crusaders and play in the NHL!
The deal was near completion when the now-defunct Cleveland Press found out about the rumor, the Crusaders players revolted (Some of them at least would lose their jobs to incoming Scouts) and the Crusaders fans protested.
The deal fell through, the Crusaders moved to Minnesota for a merger with the Fighting Saints and were soon dead.
The Scouts still left Kansas City at the end of the 1975-76 season and moved to Denver for a few seasons before becoming the New Jersey Devils!

So, would I be a fan of the Cleveland Crusaders had it bounced that way?
You know it, but there might not be three Stanley Cup banners hanging in Cleveland.
Lou Lamoriello doesn't strike me as a guy that would want to leave the east coast and likely would not have been the man to build the franchise in Cleveland that he did in New Jersey, so I have my doubts there.
But had Cleveland kept pro hockey, the New Jersey Devils would have never existed.
Looking at a third team in the NYC market, it might have been tough for anyone but John Macmullen to pull a move off to New Jersey with his local background
History spinning on a newspaper report!
Interesting to think about, isn't it?
Hope you enjoyed it...