Toggle sidebar

Failed/Rejected/Proposed ECHL franchise relocations and expansions

Atlantian

Atlantian

Registered User
Dec 13, 2017
516
415
Atlanta, GA
I enjoy looking back at how far the league has come in the last 30 years, but it isn't without some bumps in the road. I am especially interested in the history of ECHL expansion and relocation, namely the ones that, for one reason or another, did not pan out. Some examples:
  • Pee Dee Pride to Myrtle Beach (Myrtle Beach Thunderboltz)
  • Columbus Cottonmouths to Bradenton, FL (Gulf Coast Swords)
Both of those were due to failed arena projects.
  • The failed expansion team in Ontario, CA that was moved to Bloomington, IL then Phoenix, AZ before ever playing a game
  • The owner of Evansville trying (and getting league approval) to move the team to Owensboro, KY before they eventually relocated to Jacksonville
Then there's less real stories and more pipe-dreams
  • The talks about moving three southern ECHL teams (Gwinnett, Orlando, and Florida) to the AHL instead of the Western teams
  • one league owner's plan to buy the Charlotte Checkers AHL team, move it to where his current ECHL team is, and relocate that franchise to Savannah
I just like learning more about the history of the league in the expansion/relocation sense, so if anyone has any more information on these or others that I did not mention, put them in the thread
 
  • Like
Reactions: Lo97, tarheelhockey, CHRDANHUTCH and 2 others
How Geary ever convinced the league that Owensboro was going to be a legit thing is beyond me. Anyone who looked at that arena and the "plan" for more than two seconds could see it was all bull.

If you don't limit this to the Coast, you get some great, "WTF, that happened?" moments.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JMCx4
How 'bout one-'n'-done ECHL teams, one of my favorite minor league hockey topics ...

The Roanoke Valley Rampage (1992-1993) became the Huntsville Blast (1993-1994). The franchise relocated again to become the Tallahassee Tiger Sharks (1994-2001).

The Miami Matadors (1998-1999) started as the Louisville Riverfrogs (1995-1998). The franchise ultimately relocated to Cincinnati to become the brief second incarnation of the Cyclones (2001-2003).

The Macon Whoopee (2001-2002) started in the Central Hockey League, prior to that league's merger with the Western Professional Hockey League. The ECHL franchise relocated to become the Lexington Men O'War (2002-2003), then was transferred to become the current ECHL Utah Grizzlies.

The Chicago Express (2011-2012) were an ECHL expansion franchise, suspending ops after their single season. [Personal Note: Me 'n' Mrs. JMC attended one of the 36 Express home games, during which I picked up one of their replica jerseys (alternate style) that I had pre-ordered. The chest logo now has a place of honor (bottom left) in the defunct/relocated/rebranded hockey team quilt that Mrs. JMC made for me from my jersey collection.]
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: tarheelhockey, CHRDANHUTCH, Atlantian and 1 other person
SemireliableSource said:
How Geary ever convinced the league that Owensboro was going to be a legit thing is beyond me. Anyone who looked at that arena and the "plan" for more than two seconds could see it was all bull.

If you don't limit this to the Coast, you get some great, "WTF, that happened?" moments.
Click to expand...
I know a bunch of the low level minors were a cluster from the very beginning. What stories do you have?
 
mk80 said:
I guess you could chuck the San Francisco Bulls into this thread given their short run and midseason fold
Click to expand...

Upper right square of my hockey quilt. :thumbu: I bought that jersey at one of their inaugural season home games in the quirky Cow Palace of Daly City. The SF Bulls (2012-2015 barely) were the brain child (or more like the brain fart) of owner/president/GM/head coach Pat Curcio, a former minor pro/Euro league player & coach who had a dream.

The Augusta Lynx (1998-2009) and the Fresno Falcons (2003-2009) were (the only?) two other ECHL teams who folded mid-season. The Augusta franchise started as the ECHL expansion Raleigh Icecaps (1991-1998), while the Falcons were an ECHL expansion franchise formed by the West Coast Hockey League organization of the same name.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: mk80, CHRDANHUTCH and Atlantian
JMCx4 said:
Upper right square of my hockey quilt. :thumbu: I bought that jersey at one of their inaugural season home games in the quirky Cow Palace of Daly City. The SF Bulls (2012-2015 barely) were the brain child (or more like the brain fart) of owner/president/GM/head coach Pat Curcio, a former minor pro/Euro league player & coach who had a dream.

The Augusta Lynx (1998-2009) and the Fresno Falcons (2003-2009) were (the only?) two other ECHL teams who folded mid-season. The Augusta franchise started as the ECHL expansion Raleigh Icecaps (1991-1998), while the Falcons were an ECHL expansion franchise formed by the West Coast Hockey League organization of the same name.
Click to expand...

Correct - those are the only three mid-season folds in the ECHL.

Pat Curcio shares the blame for the Bulls with Angela Batinovich, who has managed to run teams into the ground in both the National Lacrosse League and the ECHL.

Augusta's demise was partly because the arena is/was a dump in a bad neighborhood and largely because the owner was in the homebuilding industry, which was decimated in the year leading up to Augusta's mid-season fold.

Fresno had moved from an arena on Fresno State's campus to an older arena owned by the city, but couldn't make the financials work in either place. Like most teams that fold, none of these three teams had sufficient capitalization to do the amount of marketing and promotions that would have brought ticket and sponsorship sales closer to the break-even point.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mk80, CHRDANHUTCH, JMCx4 and 1 other person
  • Like
Reactions: CHRDANHUTCH, Atlantian, JMCx4 and 1 other person
JMCx4 said:
How 'bout one-'n'-done ECHL teams, one of my favorite minor league hockey topics ...

The Roanoke Valley Rampage (1992-1993) became the Huntsville Blast (1993-1994). The franchise relocated again to become the Tallahassee Tiger Sharks (1994-2001).

The Miami Matadors (1998-1999) started as the Louisville Riverfrogs (1995-1998). The franchise ultimately relocated to Cincinnati to become the brief second incarnation of the Cyclones (2001-2003).

The Macon Whoopee (2001-2002) started in the Central Hockey League, prior to that league's merger with the Western Professional Hockey League. The ECHL franchise relocated to become the Lexington Men O'War (2002-2003), then was transferred to become the current ECHL Utah Grizzlies.

The Chicago Express (2011-2012) were an ECHL expansion franchise, suspending ops after their single season. [Personal Note: Me 'n' Mrs. JMC attended one of the 36 Express home games, during which I picked up one of their replica jerseys (alternate style) that I had pre-ordered. The chest logo now has a place of honor (bottom left) in the defunct/relocated/rebranded hockey team quilt that Mrs. JMC made for me from my jersey collection.]
Click to expand...

The Huntsville Blast played an exhibition game against the University of Alabama in Huntsville. I don't know who thought that was a good idea - there was a bench-clearing brawl in the second period and the game was called by the officials.

The Utah membership can be traced all the way back to Henry Brabham's Virginia Lancers, a founding member of the ECHL. They've had eight different names in seven different arenas and six different markets.
 
  • Like
Reactions: CHRDANHUTCH
JMCx4 said:
Yeah, but she's "killed it" in other parts of her career path.
Click to expand...

You mean her dad "killed it" in his career path and financed her "career." She struck me as the kind of person who wanted everyone to think of her as a "groundbreaking successful female sports executive" without actually doing the work that would make her a successful sports executive.

Oh, and she married a player from her lacrosse team.
 
SemireliableSource said:
How Geary ever convinced the league that Owensboro was going to be a legit thing is beyond me. Anyone who looked at that arena and the "plan" for more than two seconds could see it was all bull.
Click to expand...

I suspect the Board of Governors knew it was bull. It was a ploy to preserve the asset (the ECHL Membership) until such time as he could flip it, rather than let it evaporate by termination. It just required another move... to Jacksonville.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mk80
Myrtle Beach story - The Royals radio guy at the time was hired to be the GM of that team. He moved down there and started working on sponsorships, community involvement, etc. When the arena got delayed he didn't have much to do, even though he was still getting paid by the owner, so he got into selling time shares on the side. He called one of the Royals ticket guys and had them send him the contact list for season ticket holders and started calling us all to buy time shares in Myrtle Beach. Some were displeased to get these calls, called the Royals to complain, and the ticket guy ended up getting fired.

I may have attended the last game of the Men-o-War, or at least one of the last. The Royals finished that season with a road trip to Lexington, Roanoke, Atlantic City. Lexington was beautiful, nice city, friendly fans, nice weather in March compared to PA. After the game in Roanoke we stayed over, and woke up the next day to our car covered in snow. We figured, freak March snowstorm in the south, this isn't going to be a problem. Drove through what turned out to be a pretty heavy storm all the way to AC, slipping and sliding the whole way. Royals were out of the playoffs, so no college players wanted to sign to finish the season. Most of the NHL and AHL contracted players had been called up to the AHL. By the last game they were down to 12 or 13 skaters and one goalie - who had the flu and hadn't slept all night. He'd go down to make a save, cover the puck for a whistle, and the defensemen had to help him back to his feet. The equipment guy was officially listed as the backup for the game, but the coach wouldn't put him in. We drank a bunch, went to the casinos afterward, and had a good time, but that was a brutal end to the season for those players.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Roadhog, tarheelhockey, CHRDANHUTCH and 2 others
The demise of the Pensacola Ice Pilots was pretty dumb. That last owner of the team, Mario Forgione, wanted out. He said he wanted to move the team to a different league or he proposed the league find new ownership and he also got a team in a different market. He didn't really want to stay, even if he did go to a new league, he just wanted the team for the gear so he wouldn't have to buy it for his new team. He proposed this plan in June and the ECHL just hit him with a "how about no." He took the logo and reworked it from a P to a B for a junior team he got his mitts on. Guess what, that team died too.

The ACHL's Tallahassee Tide (don't get me started on how dumb that name is for Tally) had an office in the arena, a coach, staff, tickets sold, sponsorships lined up, players signed. Problem was they didn't have a lease. The plug was finally pulled about two months before the season was supposed to start.

The Tupelo T-rex were members of the WPHL, fielded a Jr. team after leaving the league, and tried to join the SEHL but were completely killed when the CHL acted on and enforced a non-compete agreement.

The whole ACHL/WHA2/SEHL/EHL/SHL/SPHL transition was a mess.
 
  • Like
Reactions: tarheelhockey, mk80, Atlantian and 1 other person
The Myrtle Beach Thunderboltz are interesting. I first heard about them in 2000 or 2001 when I was vacationing w/ family in the area. I believe the idea was to be an expansion team but the Pee Dee Pride were no longer viable or whatever so the plan became move them from Florence to the Grand Strand (what locals refer to the miles of beach along Horry County). At first the idea was to build an arena on a patch of land across the street from "Broadway at the Beach", a shopping and touristy complex located about a mile from the Atlantic Ocean. The MB Pelicans Baseball Stadium is located within this complex and an indoor sports arena would compliment the complex.

Except, for whatever reason the idea turned to them moving to nearby Conway on the campus of Coastal Carolina University, in a multi-purpose venue. I'm sure you would have gotten some college students to games (probably for the dollar beer nights) but the ideal attendees (retirees from the North, tourists, locals looking for a night out, etc.) were far out from this location. But regardless, no progress was ever made on building an arena and when the economy tanked, that was pretty much the end of the Thunderboltz.

How they would have done attendance/fan-wise is anyones guess especially since again, the economy tanked when they were gaining steam to become reality, but they would have had a much better shot playing on the same land as "Broadway at the Beach" than Conway.
 
  • Like
Reactions: tarheelhockey and JMCx4
Royalsflagrunner77 said:
Wasn't there somebody paying the league to try to make Reno . NV happen for a couple years what ever happened with that ?
Click to expand...

That would be Larry Leasure, who kept paying league dues for nearly a decade to keep the membership active despite having no place to play in Reno and a new arena never passing the ideation stage.
 
JMCx4 said:
U.S. tax laws might have said otherwise.
Click to expand...
That Reno franchise came over with the other WCHL teams when that league folded IIRC. The ECHL always maintained that there was no special deal, and those teams were just like any other expansion team, but it seems like there may have been some behind the scenes agreement with him. Other franchise owners had to show some kind of plan to return to play with a timeline for completion, and make progress over a few years or their membership was terminated. Nothing ever seemed to happen in Reno, and yet he stayed around for a long time "paying dues". Wouldn't be surprising to me if the other WCHL owners got him some kind of exception where it was a package deal for those teams to join, and he could reserve the Reno market for ten years without any requirements and minimal league dues. Maybe they just liked having him at the annual board of governors golf outing, or he always picked up the bar tab after the league meeting?
 
  • Like
Reactions: mk80 and JMCx4
royals119 said:
That Reno franchise came over with the other WCHL teams when that league folded IIRC. The ECHL always maintained that there was no special deal, and those teams were just like any other expansion team, but it seems like there may have been some behind the scenes agreement with him. Other franchise owners had to show some kind of plan to return to play with a timeline for completion, and make progress over a few years or their membership was terminated. Nothing ever seemed to happen in Reno, and yet he stayed around for a long time "paying dues". Wouldn't be surprising to me if the other WCHL owners got him some kind of exception where it was a package deal for those teams to join, and he could reserve the Reno market for ten years without any requirements and minimal league dues. Maybe they just liked having him at the annual board of governors golf outing, or he always picked up the bar tab after the league meeting?
Click to expand...
Would it be fair to say it was like a minor league hockey version of when that FF movie that was never intended to be released was made just for the studio to keep the rights?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)

Latest posts

Ad

Ad

Top Bottom