Hello world. Welcome to Episode 26 of the in my footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund. Coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, representing all six states of the New England region. This week is a special bonus episode, we're going to dive into the brief but extremely spectacular history of one of the icons of Cape Cod entertainment, sports and more. Get ready for the story of the legendary Cape Cod Coliseum coming up right now on episode 26 of the in my footsteps podcast. This is a story that I think everyone out there that grew up on Cape Cod and longtime Cape Codders will be really excited to hear about, I have thought about trying to squish this into a segment in a regular-length podcast. But then I realized there is so much that we need to talk about as far as the Cape Cod Coliseum goes. It was only open for a little over a decade. And yet it's looked back so fondly upon by anyone that if you're my age and older, I think you'd remember it. If you're younger, it is more of a piece of history, although the building itself still stands. What we're going to do is we're going to look back at the history of the Cape Cod Coliseum and how the actual building and the project came to be. We're going to look at some of the incredible bands that played there. And when I say everybody that was anyone of the 1970s into the early 80s played there, you're going to find out everybody did. We're going to look back at some of the incredible worldwide Wrestling Federation shows that happened there. And the connection between the Cape Cod Coliseum and Vince McMahon, the current owner of World Wrestling Entertainment, and we'll dive into the other famous tenants of the Cape Cod Coliseum, the ice hockey team known as the Cape Cod cubs to get ready, sit back, close your eyes and imagine you're back there in the Cape Cod Coliseum and let's go take a trip back in history. So we're going to start this journey all the way back in 1950. With the opening of the Cape Cod Music Circus in Hyannis. Originally in between Main Street and North Street in Hyannis. The Cape Cod Music Circus would later be moved to what is now the West End rotary and Hyannis and be reopened as the Cape Cod melody tent. And the reason we start there is because for now 70 years, the Cape Cod Music Circus slash Melody Tent has been the place to be as far as entertainment goes on Cape Cod, and because it's still standing, and I believe it's reopening for 2021 last year because of COVID it really there was nothing to it. But because the Cape Cod Melody Tent is still standing and it's still seen as the premiere in Cape Cod entertainment. It's hard to imagine that there was ever a spot that could rival it. But in reality, there was. Fast forward about 20 years from the inception of the Cape Cod Music Circus and we get this shooting star this flash in the pan that was known as the Cape Cod Coliseum, located on whites path in South Yarmouth, Massachusetts. Basically, White's path runs parallel to the mid-Cape highway. The building, which would house the Cape Cod Coliseum was a 46,000 square foot concrete arena, which officially opened in September of 1972 and fit between 5000-6500 people depending on what was being showcased inside. As far as the event went. The building of the Cape Cod Coliseum would cost $1.5 million in 1972, or roughly 9.6 million if adjusted for inflation for 2021. The building was owned originally by Yarmouth real estate agent William Harrison and was managed by Richard bud Terrio. The idea was to have another location another venue to have concerts, sporting events and more. And despite being known by most people today as a concert venue, it was originally ice hockey that was the claim to fame for the Coliseum. But Terrio would be the one that would bring the Cape Cod cubs into existence in time to debut in the eastern Hockey League for the 1972 73 season with Terrio as the team's first president. And that's where we'll kind of divert into the Cape Cod cubs. Their tenure as an organization was from 1972 to 1976 and the Cape Cod cubs played a total of 138 games on the ice of the Coliseum. It was a long road to get them into existence in February 1971. The initial plans for a Cape Cod hockey team were announced by Bud Terrio. He was joined by GM Jack Crawford treasurer Jack Newkirk, Jr, clerk Robert Kendrick and Secretary Gordon Daggett as the group that would own the Cubs. Interest in this amateur Cape Cod hockey team was actually pretty steady. By April of 1972. There had been more than 1000 inquiries about purchasing season tickets for the 38 home games that will be played in the 1972 73 Eastern Hockey League season. The Cape Cod cubs were given credibility by Jack Crawford, who was the team's general manager. He was actually a National Hockey League player from 1938 to 1950. Crawford played defenseman for the Boston Bruins, and he was actually a two-time all-star in 1943 and 46. After his retirement, he coached more than 650 games for the American Hockey League for teams including the Hershey bears and Providence reds. The Cubs first home game was October 2 1972, in an exhibition game against the Clinton comets out of New York, tickets to go there cost anywhere from $2.50 to $5. And the promotion was huge. All in the newspapers in October of 1972. Places like Puritan clothing, Angelou supermarkets, Dennis Public Market, Patty's rib house in West Dennis, and Paperback Booksmith in the Cape Cod mall were promoting and offering tickets, you could buy them at all those places. The cubs actually won their division that year with 83 points, and all seem to be going well. But unfortunately, January 17 1973. Jack Crawford would collapse while attending a game and died two days later at the age of 56. After a first successful season, things seem to be going well for the Cape Cod cubs. But on May 1 1973, the Eastern Hockey League folded and was split into two smaller leagues. Interestingly, one of those the North American Hockey League which the Cubs joined, served as the inspiration for the film Slap Shot that was released in 1977. Unfortunately, the Cubs would end up with a losing record for the next couple of years and the attendance was less than stellar, with the 5000 Plus seat arena routinely being less than half full. And that meant that they weren't making any money. So attempts were made to shake up the team. They did things like change the team name after the 74-75 season, the Cape Cod cubs were no more they were changed to just the cape Cotters and the new owner would be William Harrison, who also owned the Coliseum. They would become a Minor League affiliate of the New England Whalers and Cleveland crusaders of the World Hockey Association. By the time of their fourth season, the cape Codders were teetering on the edge. They briefly folded in December 1975 due to a lack of money, but the money was raised and it kept the team afloat. Sadly, the money didn't keep them going that long. And after 52 games of a 74 games schedule. The Cape Codders folded right in the middle of a season they were done. Their final game was a7-5 loss on February 11 1976 in front of 1700 people. And it's actually it's kind of fitting that the vote to dissolve the team took place on Friday the 13th of February 1976. Even though they only lasted a few years, people still talk about him to this day, and I guess their legacy 36 out of 121 people who played for the Cape Cod cubs went on to play professionally in the world Hockey Association or National Hockey League. Rewinding though to the beginning of the Cape Cod Coliseum. The first-ever event that was held there was an American Hockey League game between the Boston Braves and the Rhode Island reds. The Braves were the affiliate of the Boston Bruins while the Reds were the affiliate of the New York Rangers. It was the spring of 1973 when the Coliseum began attracting musical entertainment, it was converted into a dual ice rink slash auditorium. The auditorium could hold 6500 people and the first real show there for music was the Boston Pops in April 1973. It was so anticipated that traffic was backed up all the way from the Coliseum entrance to the off-ramps up the mid-Cape highway a mile away. Not to mention people pulling up on the highway and jumping the fence to get over there. I've heard stories from my parents and uncles and aunts about parking on the highway or getting dropped off on the highway to just jump the fence and run over to the Coliseum. I guess if you're looking for the first major rock music to be played in the Coliseum, I'm supposing you could go to Herman's Hermits who played there in July 1973. They were a British pop band, they did the song, I'm into something good for people that are younger, you might remember it from the Naked Gun. It didn't take long after, though for major major artists to start playing at the Cape Cod Coliseum. Within a few weeks, you had Ray Charles and you had Earth Wind, and Fire there. And Aerosmith made their debut there in 1973. Being local, you would think they would have played there more. They only played there four times though, which is actually surprising. Although I guess growing up in the 80s and 90s. Like I did, you don't see Cape Cod as an attraction for big-time musical artists. So the fact that any of these legends of music came and played on little old Cape Cod is actually it's still surprising local artists, the J. Geils Band, they have the record I suppose of most times playing at the Coliseum with 10. As I said at the top of this podcast, though anyone that was anyone played at the Coliseum during its time, you're talking about the cream of the crop like David Bowie, Van Halen, ZZ Top journey, James Taylor, kiss, Leonard Skinner, Bob Seger, Billy Joel, the cars Toto, Tom Petty, Black Sabbath, the Doobie Brothers, the Grateful Dead and so many others. If you want to see the list of artists that have played there and their set lists, check out setlist.fm and just look for Cape Cod Coliseum. That's basically what I just did was just go through their website and pick out the ones that I know you'll remember. But there's so much more and obviously as we get further into the history of the Coliseum, I'll recite to you some more. Because when I was reading these, it was just shock after shock, like Tom Petty played there, Santana played there, and Van Halen, on Cape Cod. I've lived in Yarmouth. Most of my life. I know this area and thinking of these bands being here, it's still shocking even though it was in the 70s I guess things were different. Despite these huge names playing at the Coliseum, it was still a problem of bringing in money. As I said before the Cape Cod cubs were not playing well and not drawing and that was really their bread and butter. These concerts would come and go during the summer the Cape Cod cubs played dozens of games there. In February 1975, the Cape Cod Coliseum was closed for 24 hours and it looked like it might be the end. A permanent closure was averted when an agreement was made with the bass river Savings Bank to keep the operations going. And this was in large part due to support from the community and youth hockey. Even though it was struggling only a few years after opening the people the locals believed in the Coliseum so much that they were willing to put up their own money to keep it going. Despite all these efforts, the writing was kind of on the wall it was like a slow decline. After the cape Cotters you know the Cape Cod cubs after they folded. The Cape Cod Coliseum was sold by original owner William Harrison. He filed for bankruptcy and the arena was bought by Ed Fruean, who owned it for three years. It was in 1979 that the Cape Cod Coliseum got its most famous owner and that was Vince McMahon, who was the owner of the then World Wrestling Federation.
He agreed to take over mortgage payments from Ed Fruean. Naturally with Vince McMahon came a lot of pro wrestling from the WWF. And the irony is that it was in these offices of the Cape Cod Coliseum in South Yarmouth that Vince McMahon began his ascent to being the worldwide leader in sports entertainment as he calls it, except for a little bit of a gap basically pro wrestling replaced hockey as the mainstay of the Coliseum around the concerts. The first major show to take place as far as wrestling went after Vince McMahon bought it was August 3 1979. The main event was Bob Backlund taking on Greg the hammer Valentine and the semi-main event was Johnny and Jerry valiant taking on Chief Jay Strongbow and Andre the Giant from when McMahon took it over to the closing of the Coliseum. There were a couple events a year held there. Back then the WWF especially when they got big they had such a big roster that they could hold three shows a day in different places and split the roster up. So you'd have times, especially on Cape Cod, you'd get the C-show where there'd be like one famous person on it and the rest were just nobodies but not with the Coliseum, everybody that was a big star of the late 70s early 80s was there. As I said you had Bob Backlund you had Andre the Giant Hulk Hogan, Tony Atlas and magnificent Morocco. Luchadore legend mil mascarus Jimmy Superfly Snuka Cowboy Bob Orton, Pedro Morales, Tito Santana, Sergeant slaughter and many more. It was all the top guys who come here basically because Vince McMahon owned it so his boys would come and work here. As the decade turned over from the 70s to the 80s Vince McMahon started adding more things into the Coliseum trying to make money with it, including roller derby, Sesame Street Live on ice, which I went and saw when I was five years old. That was my experience with the Coliseum was Sesame Street Live. There was World Team Tennis, which was an organization led by Wimbledon champion Martina Navratilova. The team was known as the Boston lobsters and they were owned by Robert Kraft. So there's another connection. Robert Kraft had a World Team Tennis team, I guess, the Boston lobsters that he owned in the early 1980s as Vince McMahon got bigger with the WWF as they started to take off nationwide. His interest in running this 6500-seat arena on little old Cape Cod kind of started to wane. 1984 would be its final year in existence, even into the 80s though some legends of music were playing there Def Leppard The Clash, talking heads, Iron Maiden in excess, Elvis Costello, the B-52s The Ramones, Joan Jett, Huey Lewis in the news and a lot more. In the early summer of 1984. Vince McMahon sold the Cape Cod Coliseum building to the Christmas tree shops Corporation, they were going to turn it into a warehouse. The last event ever held at the Cape Cod Coliseum occurred on June 4 1984 and was fittingly a World Wrestling Federation card. People that came that night for the closing ceremony I guess of the Cape Cod Coliseum got to see matches like Greg the hammer Valentine against Chief Jay Strongbow, the Iron Sheik against Jimmy Superfly Snuka. And the main event was Sergeant slaughter defeating Dr. d David Schultz, meaning the last person to really have the stage at the Cape Cod Coliseum ever was Sergeant slaughter, kind of an interesting footnote piece of trivia. If you want to see all of the events, the wrestling events that took place at the Coliseum, you can go to wrestling data.com. That's where I found these events. And they've got them all listed who was there all the matches, it's neat to see. It's a neat slice of history, I keep going back to growing up in the 1980s and 90s. Where the Coliseum was just this warehouse. I mean, I had very minimal memories of it. So hearing all of these amazing artists and bands that played their these pretty fun wrestling events that were there. And hearing of all the good times that were had there, it's a shock to me, because I don't I didn't see the cape is that way. Eventually, the Coliseum building the warehouse would be more than doubled in size. So if you see it today, that's not how big it really was. If you drive down White's path, it's still standing there. And ironically, if you look at the facade of the building that faces whites path, you can still see the outlines of the letters Cape Cod Coliseum. It's incredible. The building has been closed for more than 35 years, as far as an entertainment venue. Those letters were removed in 1984. And yet, you can still see the outlines. It's sort of fitting of the history of the Coliseum that the building is not an entertainment venue anymore. And although the memories have faded, much like the outlines of the letters, they've never gone away. If I ask parents, family members, people that are 50-60s on Cape Cod about the Cape Cod Coliseum, it just brings a smile to their faces. It may also come with a laugh and saying I don't remember much about it because I was drunk. But still, you were there tailgating in the parking lot running across the highway to get to it. For those of us that are younger, it's hard to believe that a place like that even existed, it was only around for 12 years. But in that time, they hosted some of the biggest names in entertainment period, trying to grasp it. It's like thinking of whoever you think the biggest musical artist is in the world now, or at least in that Hot five, and imagine them playing the Cape Cod Melody 10. You can't see that. But yet back in the 70s and early 80s, all these bands came and played down here. The Coliseum was like a shooting star where it was so bright for such a short period of time. And now it's been gone so long that it's almost like it never existed, because the Cape Cod melody tent was the place to go for entertainment before it. And it's been the place to go for entertainment after it. And it hearkens back to it just being a different time in the 1970s. Because I wanted to end this by asking you if you out there think there could ever be something like the Cape Cod Coliseum on Cape Cod, again, a 6500-seat arena, where all the biggest artists that you could possibly get would come on Cape Cod. I just don't see that ever happening again. I don't see it, let alone finding the room, like a piece of land to turn into it. And then all the problems that would come with it with parking and traffic. It's just a different time. The Coliseum was just a perfect spot for the 1970s. Did you ever go to the Coliseum? And what did you see? And do you remember it? As I said most people would laugh and say they were too drunk to remember what they did at the Coliseum. I wrote a couple of articles for Cape cod.com Several years ago, one about the Cape Cod Coliseum itself and another one about the Cape Cod cubs hockey team. Both of these were pretty popular on the site. And so if you want to go check them out and read more about it, you can if you want to learn more about the Cape Cod cubs themselves and their history, you can go to ehl.com which has a whole big history of the Eastern Hockey League with a lot of cool photos too. If you go on YouTube and search the internet, I believe you can find recordings from the Coliseum. I'm pretty sure there's at least one Grateful Dead show and at least one Aerosmith show from the Cape Cod Coliseum that are up so you can listen to it and pretend you're there. Let me know your thoughts on the Coliseum if you went if you enjoyed it. If you can't if you're younger, and you can't believe that a place like that actually existed. And as I say at the end of all these podcasts, you know find me on Instagram. I do live streams every Friday at 8pm Check me out on Twitter, I post a lot of links concerning the podcast, and YouTube, I do 4k New England videos, I do video segments that correspond with the podcast as well. If you want to buy me a coffee, you can go to buy me a coffee.com It's just a donation like a Patreon. Anything that gets donated I use for advertising for the podcast. So it's not like you donate money and I go buy Chinese food with it or something. Visit my homepage Christopher setterlund.com. It's got links to all of my books. It's got the feed from the podcast, you can binge it right there.
The site has been run it was created by one of my oldest friends Barry Menard, a great graphic designer. I always like to give him a shout, visit Wear your wishes.com for my sister Katie's Wear your wish, clothing, apparel and accessories site, she sold out of basically everything and had to kind of put a delay on it because everything sold out. But starting July 1, they're gonna have new bracelets, and jewelry, I went and did a photoshoot with her. So follow them on Instagram also. And if you liked the photos, just know I took them. And I'm very proud of them. And I hope you enjoy the products that she has coming out. Starting on next week's podcast. I'll have advertisements for them again. I just didn't want to do sponsorships and then have you go to the site and it says it's down. Thank you so much for tuning into this shorter episode of The in my footsteps podcast, where we looked at the history of the Cape Cod Coliseum. Tune in next week for episode 27 of the podcast. It'll be a regular full-length one, meaning 45 to 50 minutes, it's going to be loaded to we're going to look at the history of the Benny's store. If you remember Benny's, which used to be in New England, they closed down a few years ago, we're going to look back at Benny's. We're going to take a road trip to Hampton Beach, New Hampshire which has some family connections for me. So I'm excited to dive a little deeper into that. I'm gonna go way back in the day and share my experiences with the brief and I guess not so popular Sega CD system and the story of how I got mine, which is pretty funny. And we'll have another top-five list. I've got some good reviews on that. Next week's Top Five is going to be the top five lighthouses that I have visited. And the one caveat with that is visited it means I had to have gone off Cape to do it. Shoot me an email at Christophersetterlund@gmail.com. If you ever Have any questions, comments, or suggestions, I always like to hear from people that listen to the podcast. I appreciate each and every one of you that take a moment out of your day to listen to this something that I enjoy doing. It's a passion project. Thank you so much. Make sure to take time out of your day for yourself and your own mental health, do things that make you happy. Your mental health means more than anything, and spend time with those who matter the most to you. Because you never know when the next day comes. And suddenly those people are memories to remember in this life. Don't walk in anyone else's footsteps. Always create your own path. And enjoy every moment you can on this journey. Because like I said, you never know tomorrow's not given. Thank you so much. And I will talk to you again next week for episode 27 of the in my footsteps podcast. Take care everyone