Cougar Town: Bobcats To Honor ABA Team During Five Home Games This Season

The Bobcats will celebrate the region's ABA history by wearing retro Carolina Cougars jerseys for five games this season, according to industry sources. The promo is tied to a league-wide campaign in which NBA teams such as the Bobcats and Clippers will honor the local ABA heritage over the course of the regular season. The Bobcats will wear Cougars jerseys for the first time Feb. 11 against the Clippers at Time Warner Cable Arena. adidas, the NBA's official apparel supplier, will produce the retro jerseys. The club will theme five games as Hardwood Classic Nights with special ticket packages including a Carolina Cougars T-shirt. Those ticket prices have not been set, team officials said. A limited line of Carolina Cougars-branded jerseys, T-shirts and hats will be made available at the Bobcats' team store. The retro theme for those five games will extend to game-day entertainment, arena graphics and concessions pricing. The Bobcats' four other Hardwood Classic games are against the Pacers (Feb. 22), Nets (March 9), Bucks (March 23) and Nuggets (March 30). The Pacers and Nets were original members of the ABA. The Bobcats have two connections to the Cougars -- President & COO Fred Whitfield, a Greensboro native, was a ball boy for the Cougars and Senior Community Affairs Advisor Carl Scheer served as Cougars President & GM. The Cougars were in existence from '69-74 and played their home games in Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh. The team moved to St. Louis before the ABA dissolved two years later.