Distinctly Montana Magazine

34 D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A M A G A Z I N E • S U M M E R 2 0 2 6 tana had two CBA clubs: the Billings Volcanos and, three hours west, the Great Falls-based Montana Golden Nuggets. A few who passed through, guys like George Karl, Rickey Green, and Terry Stotts, would later be- come household names in the NBA. Some, like Johnson, enjoyed a small taste. For the vast majority, the phone never rang. When it did, when somebody made it, they all celebrated. It's as good a lesson as any for a young basketball team, a chapter built on persistence and camaraderie rather than glamour and stardom. So when Johnson tells sto- ries to his team, he doesn't leave it out. "They know about Billings," he says. • • • The Continental Basketball Association's geographic timeline is told in the names it held. Founded in 1946 as the Eastern Pennsylvania Basketball League, it predated the National Basketball Association by a matter of months as the nation's oldest professional basketball league. The EPBL expand- ed into surrounding states like New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massa- chusetts and, in 1970, rebranded as the Eastern Basketball Association. The curious moves began in 1977, first with the addition of the Anchor- age (Alaska) Northern Knights. The new franchise beget another rebrand, this time as the Continental Basketball Association, and was followed in short order by the establishment of the equally far-flung Hawaii Volca- nos (spelled without an e). Hawaii entered the league in 1979 under the proclamation that part-owner Wilt Chamberlain would suit up for at least some of the team's games. It never happened, and the team struggled during the inaugural season in Honolulu. By season's end, majority owner Jim West decided to move the team to Billings, Montana. West kept the team's mascot, and the Billings Volcanos played home games in still-new, 10,000-seat Metra Arena, the state's largest concert venue. Just two years later, during the 1982 offseason, President Reagan would visit, riding in on a stagecoach and with a cowboy hat in tow to help the city celebrate its 100th birthday. "We had the best arena in the league because ours was an actual arena," remembers Johnson, who played for the team in both Hawaii and Billings. "It's a real arena. This ain't no high school gym." The high school gym, it turned out, would house their new rivals. Rickey Gege G Kl

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