1948-49 FHL season

1948-49 FHL season
League	Fluvannia Hockey League
Sport	Ice hockey
Duration	October 18, 1948 – March 16, 1949
Number of games	42
Number of teams	8
Regular season
Season champions	Appleton Bears
1949 Union Cup Final
Champions	Oshkosh Lakers (1st title)
Runners-up	EHC Wolfshaven (1st app.)

The 1948-49 Fluvannia Hockey League season was the inaugural season of operation of the Fluvannia Hockey League. Eight teams played during a regular season lasting from October to February, consisting of 42 games: six games played against every other team, with each team hosting half the games played. The top four teams then played best-of-five semifinals series to determine the participants in the inaugural Union Cup Final. The Oshkosh Lakers and EHC Wolfshaven would both upset their higher-seeded semifinals opponents, with Oshkosh defeating Wolfshaven for their first Union Cup championship.

Background

This was the first season played, following the formation of the FHL on March 20, 1948. The initial teams that made up the league were taken from several of the regional leagues existing at the time: the Appleton Bears, Oshkosh Lakers, and Omro Raiders came from the Capital Hockey Association, a semi-professional league. The Charlottesville Millionaires, Harrisonburg Highlanders, and EHC Wolfshaven were previously members of the Piedmont Amateur Hockey Association.

The Manitowoc Admirals were previously an independent amateur team; initially comprised of students and faculty at the Royal Fluvannian Naval Academy in Manitowoc, the Admirals were a "barnstorming" team throughout the 1920s and 1930s. However, to comply with Fluvannia Intercollegiate Athletic Association rules regarding amateur status of student-athletes, the Admirals were forced to exclude the students from the team in order to join the FHL. In their places, the Admirals franchise, initially formed as a non-profit under the aegis of the RFNA, was forced to supplement the roster with professional players. In future years, the number of Naval Academy faculty on the roster would dwindle, and in the summer of 1961 the team's identity and personnel would be sold to a for-profit business enterprise, ending the official involvement between the RFNA and the Admirals team.

The Rochester Royals were the reigning champions of the Metropolitan Hockey Conference, though that league's most recent season at the time had been just prior to the Second Great War. The decision to include the Royals as a founding team on the basis of their status as the then-most-recent MHC champions was not without controversy, and critics were able to point to their poor performance as the season went on as evidence the Royals were "old news". These arguments were countered by others who pointed out that this was the first time the nation's top teams had played each other to determine the best club in the country; prior to the FHL's formation, hockey competition in Fluvannia was on a regional or even local basis. Even though the Royals' days as a Rochester-area dynasty were pre-war, and those victories were in a vacuum, they managed to make a stronger case for their inclusion in the league over the coming years, and would eventually come to form one of the members of the so-called "Original Five" era.

Regular Season Results

Position	Team	GP	Pts	Wins	Draws	Losses	Goals For	Goals Against	Goal Differential	Win %
1	Appleton Bears	42	72	22	6	14	114	94	20	0.595
2	Manitowoc Admirals	42	68	19	11	12	147	141	6	0.583
3	Oshkosh Lakers	42	68	20	8	14	130	108	22	0.571
4	EHC Wolfshaven	42	59	17	8	17	129	130	−1	0.500
5	Charlottesville Millionaires	42	59	17	8	17	95	99	−4	0.500
6	Harrisonburg Highlanders	42	55	16	7	19	133	137	−4	0.464
7	Rochester Royals	42	47	13	8	21	110	136	−26	0.405
8	Omro Raiders	42	44	12	8	22	119	132	−13	0.381

Playoffs

All series are best-of-five.

	Semifinals					Final
	1	Appleton	2
	4	Wolfshaven	3
						3	Oshkosh	3
						4	Wolfshaven	1
	2	Manitowoc	0
	3	Oshkosh	3