 The 1938–39 season—the IAHL's first as a fully merged league—saw the two-time defending Eastern Amateur Hockey League champion Hershey Bears added as an eighth member club to replace the Buffalo Bisons that had been forced to fold 11 games into the 1936–37 season when the roof of its arena collapsed in a snowstorm.The Bears remain the oldest continuously operating hockey team in any league in North America outside of the NHL.The Rochester Americans, who joined as an expansion team for the 1956–57 season, are the second oldest.