I was born in 1961, and the first basketball league I ever followed was the old ABA- loved those red, white and blue balls!
Anyway, the first team I rooted for was the Oakland Oaks, led by Rick Barry. They kept going broke, relocating and taking new names (including the Washington Caps and the Virginia Squires).
In terms of teams that aren’t really extinct but just moved, I vote for the Seattle Pilots. It’s almost hard to believe they existed. You have to admire the moxie of an ownership group that managed, somehow, to be awarded an expansion team in the most successful and established professional sports league in the world despite not having the wherewithal to last more than one season. In fact, during spring training 1970 they had no idea whether they’d be playing in Seattle, Milwaukee, or nowhere at all, so they had trucks with the team stuff based in Utah ready to drive in either direction, and they only got word the day before the season started that they had to drive the stuff to Milwaukee. Their team colors are still blue and yellow because that’s how it was in Seattle; Bud Selig wanted red, IIRC, but the decision was made so late they had to keep most of the uniforms and just stitch new letters on.
Isn’t that great? It’s like a direct-to-Netflix “Major League” sequel.
For actual dead teams, just for the name, I liked the Toronto Blizzard of the old soccer league, whatever the hell it was called. Now they have a soccer team (sort of; whether their on field employees can actually play professional soccer is a matter of ongoing debate) called “Toronto FC,” which is stupid.
I miss the Philadelphia Phantoms and their goofy eyes logo. I have the jersey with it.
I loved watching the Houston Aeros with three Howes (Gordie, Mark, Marty) on the team. Beat the Nordiques for the Championship!
This wasn’t minor league hockey. It was a separate major league, like the ABA or the USFL.
.
The Johnstown Jets. They were the real-life inspiration for the Charlestown Chiefs in the movie “Slap Shot,” which was filmed in Johnstown, PA. Several of the Jets’ players appeared in the movie, including Jeff and Steve Carlson and Dave “Killer” Hanson, who played the Hanson Brothers. They folded in 1977. After a period of 10 years, they were replaced by the Johnstown Chiefs, who played in Johnstown until 2010, when they moved to South Carolina.
A shout-out also to the Chicago Sting, late of the NASL. I’ll never be a huge soccer fan, but I developed some understanding of and appreciation for the game watching the Sting charge to the 1981 Soccer Bowl, while the baseball leagues were on strike.
Plus they had a cool funky-looking bee mascot named Stanley Sting.
Portland Breakers forever! They were a godsend for the geographic football wasteland between Seattle and San Francisco. Plus, they had a cool name/logo and put the “paste” in “pastel” with their colors 
The moved northwest a tick to Allentown as the Lehigh Valley Phantoms after a short stint in Glens Falls, Ny as the Adirondack Phantoms.
My favorite (and I was at their first game): Los Angeles Cobras
For the colors that personify 70s garishness: Southern California Sun
That would be the one they stole from the Pottsville Maroons right?
Yep, and the jerseys - with igloos and fleur de lis… and thinking through the players always evokes a wistful sigh in me…Steve Duchesne, Gaetan Duchesne, Mario Marois, Robbie Ftorek…
I once drew a short comic series wherein the *Nordiques *had become a barnstorming team and got into misadventures and got people out of jams. They drove around in a Partridge Family-style bus.
Re: the Quebec Nordiques. Has any other team moved immediately after winning a championship?
That…didn’t happen to the Quebec Nordiques.
The Nords didn’t, but, in 2012, it sorta happened in the American Hockey League.After that season the Tampa Bay Lightning and Anaheim Ducks swapped their AHL affiliates. The Calder Cup winning Norfolk Admirals sent their Tampa Bay personnel to the Syracuse Crunch with the Anaheim personnel of the Crunch going to Norfolk. The next season, the new Lightning/Crunch went to the finals (again?) and the new Admirals/Ducks missed the playoffs completely.
As a side note, the Admirals got screwed again this year. With the west coast NHL teams mass relocating their affiliates out west, the Admirals were swapped, again. This time for the lower league ECHL, Bakersfield Condors with the AHL Ducks personnel going to San Diego to become the Gulls.
The opposite happened. They won a championship as the Colorado Avalanche shortly after moving. First year as Avs, actually.
In 1945, the Cleveland Rams won the NFL championship and then moved to Los Angeles the next year. The original Cleveland Browns started in the All American Football Conference the next season and went on to win the championship all four years of that league’s existence.
On a side note, the Rams won NFL Championships in three different cities.
Yup, no Stanley Cup for the poor Nordique.
I remember that, years ago, on an episode on ESPN’s ***The Sports Reporters, ***, during Tony Kornheiser’s parting shot, he said, “You know, nobody EVER talks about the Quebec Nordiques on TV. Ever. So, just his once, I thought I’d say… hi, Quebec Nordiques fans!”
The Montreal Expos.
I miss watching the Braves play in that quirky dome.
I assure you nobody who played in it or watched games in it much misses it. I have never attended a professional sporting event in a worse facility, and that’s saying a lot because I once saw a baseball game in Oakland. I saw a hockey game in the Ottawa Senators’ first arena, which is - I am not kidding - in the basement of a crappy football stadium.