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Charlotte Checkers (1993–2010)
The Charlotte Checkers were an American ice hockey team in Charlotte, North Carolina, and played in the ECHL (formerly the East Coast Hockey League). Franchise history Following a 17-year break from ice hockey, the Checkers returned in 1993 and made the playoffs ten times, including winning the ECHL Championship in 1996. The Checkers franchise was founded in 1993, and was owned by a consortium headed by local auto dealer and NASCAR team owner Felix Sabates, with former Charlotte Hornets president Carl Scheer and NASCAR drivers Richard and Kyle Petty among the minority partners. They played in the old Charlotte Coliseum, which was heavily renovated and renamed Independence Arena. Soon after winning the Jack Riley Cup in 1996, Sabates sold controlling interest minority partner Tim Braswell, who claimed he could make the team more popular. However, in a case of exceptionally bad timing, this came just as the NFL's Carolina Panthers were due to open their new downtown stadium. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ECHL
The ECHL (formerly the East Coast Hockey League) is a minor professional ice hockey league based in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, with teams across the United States and Canada. Competitively, it is a tier below the American Hockey League (AHL). The league serves as a farm system to the AHL and National Hockey League (NHL). The ECHL and the AHL are the only minor leagues recognized by the collective bargaining agreement between the NHL and the National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA), meaning any player signed to an entry-level NHL contract and designated for assignment must report to a club in either the ECHL or the AHL. Additionally, the league's players are represented by the Professional Hockey Players' Association (PHPA) in negotiations with the ECHL itself. At least 739 players have played at least one game in the NHL after appearing in the ECHL. As of the 2024–25 season, 30 of the 32 NHL teams held affiliations with an ECHL team, with only the Columbus Blue ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kelly Cup
The Patrick J. Kelly Cup goes to the playoff champion of the ECHL. The Kelly Cup has been awarded to teams since 1997. Prior to 1997, the playoff winner was awarded the Riley Cup, named after former American Hockey League president Jack Riley. The current cup is named after Patrick J. Kelly, the league's first commissioner. The cup is loaned to the winning team for one year and is returned at the start of the following year's playoffs, although the trophy itself has been replaced three times with the first two iterations preserved in the Hockey Hall of Fame. The Kelly Cup Playoffs Most Valuable Player award is also given out as part of the Kelly Cup Championship ceremonies. Nick Vitucci, Dave Gagnon and Cam Johnson are the only players to win the award on multiple occasions, with Johnson the only player to win the award in consecutive years. Nineteen different teams have won the ECHL Championship, with nine (Alaska, Allen, Cincinnati, Colorado, Florida, Hampton Roads, Idaho, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charlotte Checkers
The Charlotte Checkers are a professional ice hockey team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. They are members of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference in the American Hockey League (AHL), and are the top minor league affiliate of the Florida Panthers of the National Hockey League (NHL). The Checkers play their home games at Bojangles' Coliseum. The current organization is the third team by this name; it succeeded a Checkers franchise that played in the ECHL from 1993 until the end of the 2009–10 ECHL season. The original Checkers team played in the city from 1956 to 1977, originally in the Eastern Hockey League and then in the Southern Hockey League. The franchise is one of six teams to replace and share a name with a predecessor franchise from a lower-tier league; the others are the Bakersfield Condors, Colorado Eagles, Ontario Reign, Rockford IceHogs, and San Diego Gulls. History The franchise was originally based in Troy, New York, as the Capital Dis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SB Nation
''SB Nation'' (an abbreviation for their full name ''SportsBlogs Nation'') is a sports blogging network owned by Vox Media. It was co-founded by Tyler Blezinski, Markos Moulitsas, and Jerome Armstrong in 2003. The blog from which the network formed was started by Bleszinski as ''Athletics Nation'' in 2003, and focused solely on the Oakland Athletics. It later expanded to cover sports franchises on a national scale, including all Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, and National Football League teams, as well as college teams, mixed martial arts and professional wrestling, and more, totaling over 300 community sites at its peak. The coverage style of SB Nation’s communities have an emphasis on covering sports from the perspective of fans. In 2011, the network expanded into technology content with '' The Verge'', leading to the parent company Sports Blogs Inc. being rebranded as Vox Media. ''SB Nation'' operates from Vox Media's offices in New York City ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carolina Hurricanes
The Carolina Hurricanes (colloquially known as the Canes) are a professional ice hockey team based in Raleigh, North Carolina. The Hurricanes compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference (NHL), Eastern Conference. The team plays its home games at the Lenovo Center. The franchise was formed in 1971 as the New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association (WHA). The Whalers saw success immediately, winning the Eastern Division in the WHA's first three seasons and becoming the inaugural Avco World Trophy Champions to cap off the 1972–73 WHA Season, 1972–73 season. The Whalers again competed for the World Trophy in 1977–78 WHA season, 1978, this time falling short to the Winnipeg Jets (1972–1996), Winnipeg Jets in a rematch of the 1973 Finals. The franchise joined the NHL in 1979 as part of the NHL–WHA merger, renaming themselves the Hartford Whalers. The team relocated to North Carolina in 1997, rebranding ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League (NHL; , ''LNH'') is a professional ice hockey league in North America composed of 32 teams25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. The NHL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and is considered the premier professional ice hockey league in the world. The Stanley Cup, the oldest professional sports trophy in North America, is awarded annually to the Stanley Cup playoffs, league playoff champion at the end of each season. The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) views the Stanley Cup as one of the "most important championships available to the sport". The NHL is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan. The National Hockey League was organized at the Windsor Hotel (Montreal), Windsor Hotel in Montreal on November 26, 1917, after the suspension of operations of its predecessor organization, the National Hockey Association (NHA), which had been founded in 1909 at Renfrew, Ontario. The NHL immediately took the NHA ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Hockey League
The American Hockey League (AHL) is a professional ice hockey league in North America that serves as the primary developmental league of the National Hockey League (NHL). The league comprises 32 teams, with 26 in the United States and 6 in Canada. As of the 2024–25 AHL season, all 32 NHL teams held affiliations with an AHL team. Historically, when an NHL team does not have an AHL affiliate, its players are assigned to AHL teams affiliated with other NHL franchises. The league offices are located in Springfield, Massachusetts, and its current president is Scott Howson. A player must be at least 18 years old and not belong to a junior ice hockey team to be eligible. The league limits the number of experienced professional players in a team's lineup during any given game; only five skaters can have accumulated more than 260 games played at the professional level (goaltenders are exempt from this rule). The annual playoff champion is awarded the Calder Cup, named for Frank ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albany River Rats
The Albany River Rats were a minor league professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League. They played in Albany, New York at the Times Union Center. History Before the formation of the franchise Without a viable indoor arena with an ice surface, through the end of the 1980s the city of Albany had never had a minor league professional hockey team. Three separate attempts to establish teams in the neighboring cities of Schenectady and Troy had proven unsuccessful. The first was in the 1952-53 season when the Capital Region had its first foray into pro hockey in the form of the Troy Uncle Sam Trojans, who played a single season in the Eastern Hockey League, finishing last in the five-team loop and folding after the season. Professional hockey would not return to the Capital Region until the 1980s, with a pair of failed attempts to establish franchises in the low-level Atlantic Coast Hockey League. The Schenectady Chiefs were awarded a charter franchise in the A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Kahn (businessman)
Michael A. Kahn is an American businessman based in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is the founder and CEO of Kahn Ventures, Inc., which operates the 15th largest beer and wine distribution in the United States. In June 2006, Kahn bought the Charlotte Checkers, a minor professional ice hockey team that played in the ECHL. In 2010 he brought the American Hockey League to Charlotte when he purchased and relocated the Albany River Rats, since renamed the Charlotte Checkers The Charlotte Checkers are a professional ice hockey team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. They are members of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference in the American Hockey League (AHL), and are the top minor league affiliate of the .... References External linksMichael A. Kahn's staff ptofile at Eliteprospects.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Kahn, Michael Living people American Hockey League Year of birth missing (living people) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Texas Wildcatters
The Texas Wildcatters, who took their name from Texas wildcatters, were a professional minor league ice hockey team in the ECHL based in Beaumont, Texas. They played their home games at the Ford Arena. The franchise previously played in Huntington, West Virginia, from 1993 to 2000 as the Huntington Blizzard playing at the Huntington Civic Arena. The Wildcatters relocated to Ontario, California, and were renamed Ontario Reign. The franchise's last game as the Wildcatters was a 1–4 loss to the Columbia Inferno on April 25, 2008, at Ford Arena. History During the 2004–05 season, they were affiliated with the Florida Panthers and the San Antonio Rampage. On October 7, 2005, the Jefferson County, Texas, Commissioners announced that the team would not be allowed to use Ford Arena for the 2005–06 season because the site was being used for Hurricane Rita relief. There was no suitable temporary facility in the area, forcing the Wildcatters to cancel the season. They resumed p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Florida Everblades
The Florida Everblades are a professional minor league ice hockey team based in Estero, Florida, in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area, Cape Coral-Fort Myers metropolitan area. They play in the ECHL and are affiliated with the St. Louis Blues of the National Hockey League (NHL) and the Springfield Thunderbirds of the American Hockey League (AHL) starting in the 2024–25 ECHL season. Their home games are played at Hertz Arena. The Everblades were founded in 1998. They play in the South Division of the Eastern Conference in the ECHL. They have failed to qualify for the playoffs just once in team history (2013–14) and have made seven appearances in the Kelly Cup finals, winning in 2012, 2022, 2023, and 2024; the latter three appearances constituted the first three-peat in ECHL history. History The team was founded in 1998 by Craig Brush, Peter Karmanos Jr., and Thomas Thewes and was named based on the Florida Everglades. The Everblades' logo featu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spectrum Center (arena)
The Spectrum Center is an indoor arena in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States. Located in Uptown, it is owned by the city of Charlotte and operated by its main tenant, the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The arena seats 19,077 for NBA games, but can be expanded to 20,200 for college basketball games. History The arena opened in October 2005 as Charlotte Bobcats Arena. The name was changed to Time Warner Cable Arena when the naming rights were purchased in 2008. When Charter Communications purchased Time Warner Cable in 2016, the name was again changed to reflect the Spectrum trade name. The arena was originally intended to host the original Hornets franchise in the early 2000s. The Hornets' arena, Charlotte Coliseum, was considered outdated despite being only 13 years old, primarily owing to the arena only containing eight luxury suites, whereas the Palace of Auburn Hills, which opened the same year as the Coliseum, had 180. In 2001, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
