The Peoria Rivermen are a professional ice hockey team in the

Southern Professional Hockey League The Southern Professional Hockey League (SPHL) is a professional ice hockey independent minor league based in Huntersville, North Carolina, with teams located primarily in the southeastern United States as well as Illinois and Indiana in the midwe ...

. They play in

Peoria, Illinois Peoria ( ) is the county seat of Peoria County, Illinois, United States, and the largest city on the Illinois River. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 113,150. It is the principal city of the Peoria Metropolitan Area in Centr ...

, United States at the

Carver Arena Peoria Civic Center is an entertainment complex located in downtown Peoria, Illinois. Designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect Philip Johnson and John Burgee, it has an arena, theater, exhibit hall and meeting rooms. It opened in 1982 and co ...

. The team replaced an American Hockey League franchise of the same name that was purchased by the Vancouver Canucks and moved out of Peoria to Utica, New York. The Rivermen are one of the few teams in the SPHL outside the southern United States, along with the Bloomington Thunder (2013–14 season only), the

Evansville Thunderbolts The Evansville Thunderbolts are a minor league ice hockey team in the Southern Professional Hockey League. The team plays at the Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana. The team replaced the Evansville IceMen of the ECHL. History During the 2015� ...

(since the 2016–17 season), and the

Quad City Storm The Quad City Storm is a professional minor league hockey team to begin play in the 2018–19 season as a member of the Southern Professional Hockey League. The team is based in the Quad Cities area of Illinois and Iowa, with home games at the ...

(since the 2018–19 season). Due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Rivermen are one of several SPHL teams to not participate in the 2020–21 season.

History

On May 13, 2013, it was reported by the ''

Peoria Journal Star The ''Journal Star'' is the major daily newspaper for Peoria, Illinois, and surrounding area. First owned locally, then employee-owned, it became a Copley Press entity in 1996. In 2007, the paper was sold to Fairport, New York-based GateHouse M ...

'' that after being told the city would no longer have an AHL team, former Rivermen executives John Butler and Bart Rogers and former Rivermen owner Bruce Saurs announced that they had applied for admission into the

in an attempt to save hockey in Peoria. The SPHL is a low-minor hockey league with teams mostly based in the southeastern United States. Butler and Rogers' plan also included for the group to purchase the

Bloomington Blaze The Bloomington Thunder were a minor professional ice hockey team that was a member of the Southern Professional Hockey League. Based in Bloomington, Illinois, the Thunder played their home games at the U.S. Cellular Coliseum, located in downtow ...

of the struggling

Central Hockey League The Central Hockey League (CHL) was a North American mid-level minor professional ice hockey league which operated from 1992 until 2014. It was founded by Ray Miron and Bill Levins and later sold to Global Entertainment Corporation, which oper ...

and also move them to the SPHL. There was an SPHL Board of Governors and franchise general managers emergency conference call scheduled for the morning of May 14, 2013, to decide on the admission of the Rivermen and the Blaze. On May 15, 2013, it was officially announced that the team had been accepted into the SPHL, along with the newly named Bloomington Thunder, ending the uncertainty of whether Peoria would have a minor professional hockey team in the coming year. Both teams were owned by Illinois Pro Sports, LLC. The Thunder would be shut down after one season when another ownership group obtained an expansion team in the junior

United States Hockey League The United States Hockey League (USHL) is the top junior ice hockey league sanctioned by USA Hockey. The league consists of 16 active teams located in the midwestern United States, for players between the ages of 16 and 21. The USHL is strictl ...

for Bloomington, isolating the Rivermen in the north. In 2017, the majority ownership of the Rivermen was sold to CSH International Inc., the same owners of the Bloomington USHL franchise, with the former owners, Bart Rogers and John Butler, staying on with minority ownership. On May 3, 2022, the Rivermen beat the Roanoke Rail Yard Dawgs in game four of the

President's Cup The Presidents Cup is a series of men's golf matches between a team representing the United States and an International Team representing the rest of the world minus Europe. Europe competes against the United States in a similar but considerably ...

finals in overtime to win the franchise's first President's Cup.

References

External links

Official website
{{Illinois Sports Southern Professional Hockey League teams Ice hockey clubs established in 2013 Ice hockey teams in Illinois