SOUTHAVEN, Miss. – Fans of the Central Hockey League’s Mississippi RiverKings are awaiting information today after a weekend report by a local television station suggested the team was considering a move to the Southern Professional Hockey League. 
Jarvis Greer, Sports Director at WMC-TV in Memphis, made the brief statement on Saturday night’s 10:00 pm newscast and indicated that more information would be forthcoming. The RiverKings, who are preparing for their 20th season of professional hockey, are the oldest continuously operating professional sports franchise in the Memphis Metropolitan Area. Founded in 1992, they are one of the original six teams of the revived Central Hockey League, which had its inaugural season in 1992-93. Since 2000, their home has been the DeSoto Civic Center in Southaven, Mississippi, a suburb of Memphis. The franchise won the Ray Miron President’s Cup Championship in 2002 and again in 2003, but has had limited success since. Last December, the RiverKings fired head coach Kevin Kaminski, who had just begun his third year with the organization. Paul Gardner, who most recently coached in German Elite League (DEL) at Hamburg took Kaminski’s place. “We needed to move in a different direction,” RiverKings’ Director of Business Operations Dave Mattice said in a press release, “and we think our fans deserve better than what has been produced the past two years.” Kaminski was hired shortly thereafter as the new head coach of the SPHL’s Louisiana IceGators. The Central Hockey League, which concluded its annual summer conference on Saturday night, had asked for commitments for the 2011-12 season from its member teams by last Friday. The league is expected to announce the participating teams for the upcoming season as early as today. Contact the writer at robert.keith@prohockeynews.com
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