Gaudreau’s lone season in Dubuque was proving ground for the experience that later became “Johnny Hockey” - starring at Boston College, winning the Hobey Baker Award and eventually building a career that has seen him emerge as one of the NHL’s premier players. In six months, he went from a potential project who was slated to spend three years in the USHL to a phenom who became one of the best players in the league. The Fighting Saints decided to use one of those tenders on a 17-year-old winger from Carneys Point Township, New Jersey, which is some 954 miles away from Dubuque. Being an expansion team meant the Fighting Saints had seven tenders they could use to sign eligible players before they could be drafted by another USHL team. The USHL made the new version of the Fighting Saints an expansion team that would enter the league in the 2010-11 season. ![]() They opted to name the team the Fighting Saints as a nod to the city’s past. But in 2009, a new ownership group came forward with the hopes of bringing a USHL team back to Dubuque. So did others who were fortunate enough to reach the NHL.Įventually, ownership moved the team to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2001. Anyone who donned that sweater knew the club had won the Clark Cup, the league championship, three times in the first five years of their existence. Future five-time NHL All-Star defenseman Gary Suter played there. ![]() Playing for the Fighting Saints came with expectations. For 31 years, the original Fighting Saints played in the USHL - a circuit considered to be the premier Tier 1 junior hockey league in North America. ![]() That’s how long Dubuque, Iowa, went without the Fighting Saints.
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