Chicago Cougars

Chicago Cougars
City	Chicago, Illinois
League	World Hockey Association
Operated	1972–1975
Home arena	International Amphitheatre Randhurst Ice Arena
Colors	Gold, Green
Media	WSNS-TV WCFL

The Chicago Cougars were a franchise in the World Hockey Association from 1972 to 1975. The Cougars played their home games in the International Amphitheatre. During the 1974 Avco Cup Finals against Gordie Howe and the Houston Aeros, the team's two home games were played at the Randhurst Twin Ice Arena in suburban Mount Prospect. This was because a presentation of Peter Pan starring gymnast Cathy Rigby was booked into the Amphitheatre when the National Hockey League's Chicago Blackhawks and the National Basketball Association's Chicago Bulls had both entered their own playoffs, making the Chicago Stadium unavailable for either the Cougars or Peter Pan.

Just prior to their third season, the team was sold to Cougars players Ralph Backstrom^[1] and Dave Dryden, and player-coach Pat Stapleton after the original owners, Walter and Jordon Kaiser, were unable to secure funds to build a new arena. The land for the arena, originally named the O'Hare Sports Arena, was sold to the village of Rosemont and became the Rosemont Horizon (now the Allstate Arena). This building is the now the home of the Chicago Wolves of the American Hockey League.

They were placed in the Western Division for their first season (1972–73) and transferred to the Eastern Division for their final two seasons (1973–74 and 1974–75) when the Philadelphia Blazers moved to Vancouver.

The Cougars were the first North American major professional hockey team to feature player numbers on the front of their jersey in the upper right corner. The next professional team to adopt this feature was the NHL's Buffalo Sabres in 2006, who continued to feature front numbers on their jerseys until 2020. Four other NHL teams (Dallas, the New York Islanders, San Jose, and Tampa Bay) features similar front number treatments at points between 2007 and 2015.