The American Hockey League has endured peaks and troughs in its history.

The AHL has now established itself as the top development league for NHL teams to send their prospects.

The purported second-best league in the world has not always been in the best of health, however.

The 1977-78 AHL season was in jeopardy when the Rhode Island Reds (previously Providence Reds) folded in the offseason.

That left the AHL with just five teams, a far cry from the 31 teams (soon to become 32) the league now hosts.

Numbers were bolstered when the North American Hockey League and Southern Hockey Leagues both folded. Two clubs switched from the NAHL, an expansion team joined, as did one club from the SHL.

The team joining from the SHL were the Hampton Gulls.

The Gulls had only been in existence since 1974 but were one of the best teams in the defunct SHL.
Consecutive second-place finishes and finals losses in the Southern League were a terrific start to their tenure.
In season three, they looked set to go one better.

Hampton led the standings before the SHL collapsed on January 31, 1977.

The Hampton Gulls were essentially no more but regrouped to take their place in the American Hockey League.

John Brophy had been Hampton’s Head Coach since their inception and remained with the club through their history.

He is cited by many as the inspiration for Paul Newman’s Reggie Dunlop character in Slap Shot and was a legendary minor league enforcer across eighteen seasons in the Eastern Hockey League.

The job in Hampton was Brophy’s first full-time coaching gig but not his last.
He later became a head coach in both the WHA (Birmingham Bulls) and the NHL (Toronto Maple Leafs).

Brophy accumulated over a thousand wins in his professional coaching career, finishing in the ECHL.
He would also coach juniors before finally retiring.

Hampton retained their affiliation with Cincinnati Stingers (WHA) and joined forces with the Edmonton Oilers for this inaugural AHL campaign.

Fans at the Hampton Coliseum would not particularly enjoy watching the Gulls in the AHL.

Hampton tasted defeat in 28 of 46 games, before ceasing operations on February 10, 1978, due to financial issues.

The team that was formed in 1974 as an expansion franchise and originally intended for Fayetteville, North Carolina, was no more.

There would be no third incarnation of the Hampton Gulls.

Forty-six games played is not the fewest ever played by an AHL if we are counting all-time history.

The Buffalo Bisons played just eleven in 1936 to hold that dubious honour.

The market would be served by two other teams named Hampton.

The Hampton Roads Gulls (1982–1983 ACHL) and Hampton Roads Admirals of the ECHL (1989–2000).

The Norfolk Admirals now serve the Virginia area, albeit at the Norfolk Scope Arena.

Norfolk is also in their second incarnation, having been an AHL club before the franchise was shipped to San Diego by Anaheim.

Now competing in the ECHL, Norfolk is owned by Patrick Cavanagh and is the affiliate of both the Chicago Wolves and Charlotte Checkers.

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