History
The Original Spitfires in the Ontario Hockey Association played Junior A hockey from 1945 to 1953. During this period the Spitfires reached the league finals twice, and featured four future Hockey Hall of Fame players. Prior to 1945 local junior hockey was divided up into the 6-team Windsor Junior Hockey League. The folding of the Spitfires occurred in 1953 as hockey interests in Windsor chose to focus their attention on the OHA Senior A Hockey League. This resulted in the founding of the Windsor Bulldogs. Eventually five former Spitfires laced up with the Bulldogs and one, Bobby Brown, won an Allan Cup with the team (1963). The Bulldogs folded in 1964 after one season in the International Hockey League.
The modern Windsor Spitfires started as a Junior A team which played in the Southern Ontario Junior A Hockey League from 1971–1975. The Spitfires won the 1973 Jack Oakes Trophy as league playoff champions and were regular season champions in 1974 and 1975, and were granted entry into the OMJHL (later known as the OHL) as an expansion franchise for the 1975–76 OMJHL season, after a 22 year hiatus.
The "Spits" as they are commonly known, won their first Emms division title in 1980 and reached the OHL finals, but lost to the Peterborough Petes. Ernie Godden set an all-time OHL record in 1980–81 scoring 87 goals. In 1984 Peter Karmanos, the founder and CEO of Compuware, bought the team and renamed them the Windsor Compuware Spitfires.
In a well-executed four-year plan, Windsor won the J. Ross Robertson Cup in 1987–88, defeating the Peterborough Petes for the OHL championship. The Compuware Spitfires won 35 of their last 36 games played, including being the first team to be undefeated in the OHL playoffs. Windsor also won 54 games and lost none, when leading after two periods. The Spitfires played in the 1988 Memorial Cup hosted in Chicoutimi, Quebec. Windsor lost in the championship game to the Medicine Hat Tigers.
Karmanos sold the team to local construction magnate Steve Riolo after the 1988–89 season, and the team reverted back the Windsor Spitfires name and adopted their modern logo.
Read more about this topic: Windsor Spitfires
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