The Eighties

The Vancouver Grizzlies first hit the court in 1995 and spent six seasons in Canada's Pacific Northwest before heading to Memphis, TN.

The??1986 World Exposition on Transportation and Communication, or simply??Expo 86, was a World's Fair held in Vancouver??from May 2 until October 13, 1986. The fair's theme was "Transportation and Communication: World in Motion ??? World in Touch." It coincided with Vancouver's centennial and was...

The Starwood Ampitheater was an outdoor music venue in Nashville. For a generation it was greater Nashville's outdoor concert hot spot. It opened June 20, 1986 with concert called??One for the Sun, featuring, among others, rock & roll legend Carl Perkins.??Blue Oyster Cult performed...

Idora Park began welcoming visitors in 1899 and was a beloved destination for folks in the Youngstown/Warren area for generations. However, a devastating fire in 1984 destroyed the park's signature ride, the Wildcat roller coaster. The park soldiered on for one more season before...

The Fort Lauderdale Strikers joined the North American Soccer League (NASL) in 1977. Their home was Lockhart Stadium which is considered to be America's first-ever soccer-specific stadium. In 1984, the team moved to Minnesota. Two subsequent, but unrelated, soccer teams have used the Strikers...

The original Tacoma Stars joined the Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL) in 1983 as an expansion team. They hold the record for largest ever to see an MISL game as 21,728 witnessed a Game 7 loss to the Dallas Sidekicks in the 1987 MISL...

The Rike-Kumler was established in Dayton in 1853. David L. Rike and his associates started their venture near Third Street and Main downtown.??The business started when the firm of Prugh, Joyce & Rike was formed. This organization continued for a short time until the...

Westaland Mall opened in 1969 as an open-air, plaza-style shopping center, much like the Northland Mall five years earlier. Lazuras had a free-standing store on the site beginning in 1962 and became one of the mall's anchors. In the 70s, the mall was the...

The Phoenix Inferno joined the Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL) in 1980. In 1983 new ownership renamed them the Pride. They folded after that season.

SkyDome opened in 1989 as the new home of Toronto's baseball and football teams. The city's basketball team played there from 1995 to 1999 while a new arena was being built downtown. The football team got the boot in 2015, leaving the baseball team...

Harveys was a department store chain that began in 1942 with a store at the corner of 6th Avenue North and Church Street in Nashville. In the 1960s and 1970s it added locations in the surrounding suburbs as well as other towns across Middle...

Boardwalk and Baseball was a theme park in Haines City, FL that opened in April 1987. It replaced Circus World, keeping many of that park's rides but otherwise completely re-theming the entire property. The park was successful in attracting the Kansas City Royals baseball...

Originally opened as Avalanche Run, this indoor roller coaster opened at Cedar Point in 1985. In 1990, it was renovated and renamed Disaster Transport, featuring a futuristic space theme. Over time, though, the theming deteriorated and was never repaired. It gave it's last ride...

Granny's Rocker Nite Clubs, with locations in Edwardsville and Alton, Illinois, were popular venues for live rock concerts for 10 years starting in 1985.

It was originally called Candyland when it opened in 1928 as a franchise of sorts of the original Candyland on Church Street. It became Vandyand in 1985 to better represent its proximity to Vanderbilt University. For 78 years it was the go-to destination for...

Soccer Bowl '83 was the penultimate championship game played by the original North American Soccer League (NASL). The NASL was??formed in 1967 when the competing United Soccer Association and the National Professional Soccer League decided to join forces. For the next 12 seasons, it...

Paul Wilcox hosted??the TV show "Polka Varieties," the show aired Sundays on Cleveland's WEWS-TV (and eventually was syndicated on stations across the country) from 1956 to 1983. It??highlighted??both local and national polka acts.

One of the most popular auto racing video games of all time, Pole Position debuted in 1982.

The Metrodome, officially the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, opened in Minneapolis 1982, replacing Metropolitan Stadium in suburban Bloomington as the home of the city's pro baseball and pro football teams. The baseball team left after the 2009 season and moved into their own place....

The Nebraska Wranglers were a one-year wonder in the Women’s Professional Basketball League, joining in the league's third and final season in the winter of 1980-81. The expansion club would go on to win the league championship in April 1981.  OS16283

The Detroit Drive was formed in 1988, joining the Arena Football League for that circuit's second season. The team played in the Motor City's Joe Louis Arena through the 1993 season, winning four AFL championships. The team moved to Worcester, MA in 1994 and...

The original St. Louis Steamers joined the the Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL) as an expansion team in 1979 and played until 1988. At its peak of popularity the team was drawing crowds of over 17,000 to the St. Louis Arena. READ MORE ???*Shirt...

The original St. Louis Steamers joined the the Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL) as an expansion team in 1979 and played until 1988. At its peak of popularity the team was drawing crowds of over 17,000 to the St. Louis Arena. READ MORE ???*Shirt...

Uncle Bill's had 5 stores in the Cleveland area in 1961 when it was acquired by Cook's. Ontario stores and 3 other Midwest discount chains were also bought by Cook's. The company also owned Pick-n-Pay stores but sold them in 1972. In 1976 it...

The Louisville Thunder were charter members of the American Indoor Soccer Association, and played from 1984 to 1987. The reached the finals in each of their three seasons, capturing the championship in 1987. Their home pitch was the Broadbent Arena at the Kentucky Exposition...

The Bell System was a network of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated telephone service in North America for over a century. It was formed in 1877 and broken up on anti-trust grounds in 1983. Colloquially, the system...

The Grand Prix of Cleveland was an Indy car event first held on July 4, 1982 as the "Budweiser Cleveland 500." The race was held annually at Burke Lakefront Airport through 2007.

The Racer roller coaster opened on April 29, 1972 along with the rest of Kings Island. Starting with the 1982 park season, one train was turned around and became known as the Backwards Racer. It was only supposed to be that way for the...

Geri's Hamburgers was founded in 1962 in Rockford, Illinois and modeled after the early McDonald's of the day, including a design geared toward walk-up service. This was no accident, as one of Geri's owners was a former vice president at McDonald's. Later locations had...

The Stingers were Cincinnati's only major league hockey team. The team played at Riverfront Coliseum (now U.S. Bank Arena) from 1975 to 1979, and they were members of the World Hockey Association (WHA). When the WHA merged with the National Hockey League in 1979,...