The Johnstown Tomahawks’ origins date to the 1996-97 season when the team was formed as the St. Louis Sting.  Johnstown has enjoyed a seven-decade-long love affair with ice hockey, dating back to a short one-year stop at the old Shaffer Ice Palace in 1941 when the late Mayor John A. Conway dropped the first puck between the Johnstown Blue Birds and the New York Rovers of the Eastern Hockey League.