As it turned out, this was the last game the Indians would play in Springfield. In the fall of 1994, the franchise was bought by out-of-town interests and moved to Worcester, Massachusetts, to become the Worcester IceCats. With good will from a league with central offices across the river in West Springfield and support from league president Jack Butterfield and vice-president Gordon Anziano (both former Indians executives), longtime Indians general manager Bruce Landon secured a new franchise from the league and started play that season as the Springfield Falcons. He was also able to land an affiliation with the Whalers, thus allowing the new team to retain most of the Whalers-owned players that had played as the Indians in the previous season. Springfield has thus fielded a team in the AHL and its predecessors for all but seven years since 1926, and continuously since 1954. The only city with a longer unbroken run in the AHL is Hershey, where the Bears have played continuously since joining the AHL in 1938.