``You would see Bobby Hull or Gordie Howe coming in a school bus carrying their equipment just like school kids,'' Lacroix said, laughing.
Twenty-five years ago, those scenes played out in Cherry Hill, when the township, tiny by pro-sports standards, became the home of a professional hockey franchise for five months. The World Hockey Association - an upstart league that gave Wayne Gretzky his start and rivaled the NHL - moved the bankrupt New York Golden Blades from Madison Square Garden to the Cherry Hill Arena, which had been built as a recreational skating facility.
Major-league hockey in Cherry Hill?
That depends on whom you ask.
Seeing players such as Howe and Hull in Cherry Hill Arena, said former Flyers broadcaster and Cherry Hill resident Gene Hart, ``would be like seeing Bruce Springsteen working in the local bar in Pleasantville, N.J., with eight drunks.''
On the other hand, the Jersey Knights gave area hockey fans a chance to see some of the game's biggest names at reasonable prices. The money that fans plunked down for tickets back then would likely get them only a couple of hot dogs and sodas at today's sporting events.
Because Cherry Hill Arena seated fewer than 6,000 people, fans also got an intimacy that few of the bigger arenas provided.
``It was affordable and a good way to see pro hockey,'' said Jim Bottini, a 1976 graduate of Cherry Hill East, adding that he and his friends went to six or eight Knights games during the 1973-74 season. ``There really wasn't a bad seat in the house, no, because you could see everything.''
The quaint setting in the barnlike structure may have appealed to fans, but the arena, which has long since been torn down, certainly did not endear itself to the players. To many of them, it was about as charming as the receiving end of a cross-check.
