Buffalo Blizzard
The Buffalo Blizzard, based in Buffalo, New York, were an indoor soccer club in the National Professional Soccer League from 1992 to 2001. It began as an expansion franchise in June 1992, owned by brothers Seymour and Northrup Knox, who also owned the city's hockey team, and Robert and Melinda Rich, who owned its minor league baseball club. They passed on an invitation from the big indoor league of the 1980s, which shut down that July.
The Blizzard played at Buffalo Memorial Auditorium until 1996, then moved to the new Marine Midland Arena, later renamed HSBC Arena. The first team went 23-17, the club's best record. Attendance peaked at an average of 8,435 a game in 1993-94. The mascot was a dog named Spyke, who rode a four-wheeler.
Brothers Rudy and Randy Pikuzinski were the main attractions. Rudy came home to Buffalo and stayed eight seasons, finishing with 317 goals and 823 points for the club. On March 18, 1995, he scored his 350th career goal to set a league scoring record, with Randy assisting. Randy played all nine seasons. Tony Meola, the US captain at the 1994 World Cup, signed in December 1994 and played 12 games that winter.
The final regular season record was 188-176, with two losing seasons in nine. The Blizzard won division titles in 1996-97 and 1997-98 but never won a playoff series. Cleveland eliminated them in each of their first four seasons. John Bellanti, who had owned Buffalo's earlier indoor club, bought the team in August 1996. Attendance fell to 4,635 a game in 2000-01. When the league stopped operating in 2001, several of its clubs formed a new indoor league. Bellanti, who said the team had lost money for nine straight years, did not join, and the Blizzard folded on August 15, 2001.
