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The Kansas City Cascades are a professional ice hockey team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Cascades compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference. The Cascades played at the Kemper Arena in the city's West Bottoms section from 1990 to 2007, when they moved into the T-Mobile Center in the city's Power & Light District, a venue they share with the Kansas City Spartans of the National Basketball Association (NBA).
The Cascades were founded during the 1967 NHL expansion as the Columbus Groundhogs, based in Columbus, Ohio. The franchise relocated to Kansas City for the 1990–91 NHL season and was renamed the Kansas City Cascades.
History[]
1967–1990: Columbus Groundhogs[]
- Main article: Columbus Groundhogs
The Columbus Groundhogs began play in 1967 as part of the league's seven-team expansion. Home games were initially played at the Fairgrounds Coliseum, but the team moved to the larger Columbus Tri-Counties Arena upon its opening three years later. Initially successful both on the ice and at the gate, the Groundhogs fell victim to financial problems after several poor seasons in the late-1970s.
By 1985, declining attendance led ownership to request permission to move the team to Houston, Texas. The league rejected the request, and instead agreed to award an expansion franchise, the Houston Comets (now the current Houston Aeros), to oilman Malcolm E. Songhurst. The Groundhogs were eventually sold to a group of investors that were looking to place a team in Cleveland, although one of the group's members, former Connecticut Aviators part-owner Kevin Bovens, would eventually gain control of the team. Bovens explored the possibility of moving the team to Miami in a partnership with Miami Dolphins owner Joe Robbie, and had registered a trademark for the "Miami Knights", but the deal fell through.
1990–1995: Relocation and early years in Kansas City[]
In 1990, amid further attendance woes and bitter personal controversy, Bovens obtained permission from the league to move the team to Kansas City, Missouri, for the 1990–91 season, with the decision announced on March 10, 1990. Bovens was approached by the city's tourism bureau with the idea of moving the team to Kansas City; the market had previously housed another NHL team, the Kansas City Scouts, in the early-1970s. With the team's move to Missouri, the team changed its name to the "Cascades", a name inspired by the the city's numerous water fountains. The Cascades would move into the Kemper Arena, the home of the American Royal livestock show, as well as another Kansas City sports franchise, the then-fledgling Kansas City Spartans of the National Basketball Association (NBA).
To quell the ensuing controversy surrounding the Groundhogs' move to Kansas City, the NHL promised that the Columbus area would receive an expansion franchise in the near future; that promise was fulfilled in 2000 in the form of the Columbus Blue Jackets.
The first NHL game at the Kemper Arena in over fourteen years was played on October 4, 1990, and was a 6–3 win against the Minnesota North Stars. Somewhat ironically, Columbus native Steve Paderna scored the first Cascades goal in Kansas City. Though the Cascades were relatively still low on the Kansas City sports pecking order upon their arrival, popularity of the team grew rapidly, and the immediate success of the team on the ice, as well as Jöns Jennefors' career-best season, helped spur the team's popularity in the Kansas City area.
Kevin Bovens vowed the Cascades would not be his last property, sports or otherwise, in the states of Missouri and Kansas. He also deepened his involvement in the Kansas City area, buying Louise Paparoni's former mansion in Olathe, Kansas for $16 million (equivalent to $37.5 million in 2025) to live there and leased space in the Oak Tower in Downtown Kansas City to serve as his corporate headquarters.