This program shows you everything that was wrong with the atmosphere for the NASL. The defending outdoor champs, playing indoor, against the Red Army. Why not wait until the season?
Bryan, I remember it as being intended as a one-time gimmick. The Atoms were the thing at the time. The owners and the NASL just wanted to get some off-season mileage out of it. At the time, who among us really thought this indoor soccer on a hockey rink sideshow would plant the "evil seed" which would contribute to the NASL's ultimate demise?! PS: There's a vague memory of the St. Louis Stars holding an indoor freak-show match against the St. Louis Blues (!) in St. Louis Arena long before that Atoms' indoor friendly. I recall a radio spot by Dan Kelly referring to it as "hock-soccer" or some equally unpleasant name. Anyone?
I think it was hocker - yeah, like a loogie. Really nice, right? I think the constant rebranding/repackaging of what essentially should have been an single product doomed NASL through scattershot perception.
I don't know about that specific exhibition, but "hoc-soc" is an archaic form of indoor soccer played on a hockey rink without the ice - like MISL indoor soccer but with more physical play allowed, and using hockey goals. As far as I know, this was an exclusively St. Louis phenomenon, but I could be wrong. (I mean "hoc-soc" specifically, not playing soccer in a hockey rink.)
Re "hoc-soc" in St. Louis, I suppose someday when one of us has access to Post-Dispatch archives and a day to kill, we could go back to 1969-70 off-season and do some digging. Next time I'm in the cellar amongst the Xerox boxes, I'll check through the old Soccer America collection and try to find some particulars on that Atoms-Red Army exhibition which took place on my 21st birthday.
1974 Red Army Indoor Invasion According to Soccer America reporters, the Atoms-Red Army indoor match was actually the second of a set of three. The Soviets started v. team of NASL All-Stars in Maple Leaf Gradens 2/7/74 winning 8-4 in front of 11,535. The NASL team was coached by Al Miller, who started Ken Cooper in goal. Kyle Rote, Jr., Barry Barto, and Werner Roth were other participants probably familiar to most of you today. The second leg was the aforementioned match v. Atoms at the Spectrum 2/11/74. In front of 13,928 (the outdoor average was approx 12,000 in '73), the Red Army defeated the Atoms (aided by a few loaners including Paul Child, Jorge Siega) 6-3. The final contest was in St. Louis at the Arena (later Checkerdome) 2/13. The Reds defeated the St. Louis Stars 11-4 in front of 12,241. An Astroturf surface was used in Philadelphia and St. Louis, actually the same surface, provided from Atlanta. No clue on the Maple Leaf Gardens surface. What you now may find amusing about all this is that the official announcement about these matches took place only about a month or less before they took place. Can't imagine MLS announcing anything like this on such short notice today. These major indoor arenas are now generally booked solid to up to a year or more... particularly now that the hockey and basketball playoffs run practically to the first day of summer. Credit to our old SA friends Clay Berling, Colin Jose, Debbie Goldstein, and Harold Flaschbart (Post-Dispatch) for the info.
I remember that cover! The wierd thing is that it's hard to tell the teams apart. I think that's the Dallas Tornado with the blue and orange, but the Philly jersey looks to be the same shirt, but with a different shade of blue instead of the orange stripes. Notice the keeper wearing the same color shorts/socks as the rest of his team...that was the way they used to do it before the kit merchandisers took over and made special keeper unis that look completely different from the rest of the team.
"Hoops" (the two horizontal stripes) on the jerseys were trendy back then. Washington Darts and Montreal Olympics/Olympique had them earlier on. Euro teams, too. You may also recall that FIFA was loosening up on GK colors around then. Originally it was a slim choice of black, green, yellow. Always felt it was the advent of synthetics that facilitated that change. How good it is today by comparison. Always felt that that 1973 SI cover officially signalled the end of the NASL's Dark Ages.
FINALLY all the wrongs of the 1977 NASL Final have been righted! Seattle Sounders 2:0 Tampa Bay Rowdies http://www.stlsubbuteo.com/image_playoffs07.htm http://flick2kick.typepad.com/flick2kick/2007/06/image_is_everyt.html
Great article! David D'Errico: American Soccer Story https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?p=12015136#post12015136
Hey, just remembered, there are three short NASL videoclips I uploaded ages ago on my now defunct website. http://newheads.tripod.com/id27.html
It's the 25th Anniversary of the Sounders appearance in Soccer Bowl '82: http://goalseattle.blogspot.com/2007/07/kenny-hibbitt-created-magic-for-82.html