Miami Clippers

The Miami Clippers were one of four teams in the Tropical Hockey League (TPL) that was an early pioneer of hockey in Florida. The THL played one official season in 1938-39 at the Metro Ice Palace in... Miami, Florida. If you can believe it, the earliest pro hockey in Florida started before WWII!

The THL consisted of four teams (Tropicals, Miami Beach Pirates, Coral Gables Seminoles, and the Miami Clippers). The players on the teams were purely Canadian imports though, so the teams named for Cuban and Floridian cities didn't have Cubans or Americans on their rosters. The Clippers would record a 7-6 record and finish in second place in the league's only season. Coral Gables would take home the league title by going 12-2. Newspapers show the league may have persisted for another year or two, but it's unclear and if it did go further it didn't garner much attention.

The THL was well ahead of its time, as it would take a couple decades for pro hockey to return to the Sunshine State. In 1964, the Jacksonville/Florida Rockets of the EHL would be the ones to startup pro hockey in Florida again. They wouldn't last too long, though. And it wouldn't be until 1993, over 50 years since the TPL disbanded that the Tampa Bay Lightning would be the state's first NHL team.