The American Basketball Association had franchises for two seasons at Met Center. They were extremely interesting, although not to the sporting public, which embraced the arrival of the NHL with the North Stars and ignored the fledgling basketball league.
The ABA started as a rival to the NBA in the fall of 1967, at the same time the NHL was doubling in size with a six-team expansion to Minnesota, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, St. Louis, the Bay Area and Los Angeles.
The first ABA team was the Muskies. They went 50-28, finished second in the East, won a best-of-5 playoff series against the Kentucky Colonels, and then lost 4-1 to the Pittsburgh Pipers in the semifinals. The official average attendance in the regular season was 2,473, and that was exaggerated.
How do I know this? Well, I'm a sighted individual, and also my friend Bob Fowler was the public relations director. He told me of the night that he handed a sheet of paper with an attendance figure in the hundreds to General Manager Eddie Holman.
Eddie, a former cabdriver, studied it for a minute, put a 2 with a comma in front of the number and said, "Announce this.''
The Muskies were sold at season's end and went to Miami. They were named the Floridians. Most everyone thought that was it for the ABA in Bloomington, but then it was announced that the champion Pipers would be moving to Minnesota for the 1968-69 season.
The Pipers had the great Connie Hawkins, the irrepressible Artie Heyman, and the veteran backcourt of Chico Vaughn and Charlie Williams. They all had big personalities and not a great appreciation for discipline.
Vince Cazzetta had resigned as the Pipers coach because he didn't want to move to Minnesota. The hard-nosed Jim Harding was hired to coach the Minnesota Pipers. By all accounts, he liked to drink, and could be quick to anger when doing so.
