JACKSONVILLE, FLA- The last time a professional hockey game was played in Jacksonville, the date was April 13, 2008. It was in the Southern Professional Hockey League’s Presidents Cup finals and saw the Jacksonville Barracudas lose to the Knoxville Ice Bears 4-3 in front of 1,656 fans at a rink known to locals in Jacksonville as Jax Ice. The next night in Knoxville, the Ice Bears won the league championship.
A couple of weeks later, the Barracudas suspended operations and eventually folded.
Hockey fans in Jacksonville had reason to hope that a new team would come to the city. The Barracudas had originally played in the old Jacksonville Coliseum before moving into the then-brand new Jacksonville Memorial arena when it opened.
There was talk of a smaller arena to be built to house a new team.
When efforts failed to find a new team right away, the fans still held the hope that hockey would be back soon enough. I doubt that any of them thought it would take nine and a half years for it to happen.
There is little doubt that many fans were surprised when it was announced that the city of Jacksonville would return to the ECHL – a league that the city had fielded a team in from 1995-2000.
Some of the local fans might remember those days in the ECHL. The Lizard Kings played in the old Coliseum during those previously mentioned seasons.
Jacksonville qualified for the playoffs twice during those five campaigns, the first in 1996 when the Lizard Kings made it to the finals before being denied the crown when Charlotte swept then.
This new team is in actuality a franchise in search of a new lease on life. The Icemen were originally located in Evansville, Indiana before moving to Jacksonville while maintaining the Icemen nickname.
Give the ownership credit. Prior to the announcement, the fact that the Icemen were heading to Florida was a very well kept secret. There were no whispers on the Internet and Jacksonville managed to stay out of the conversation when it came to prospective ECHL cities. The league and the owners controlled the message and only announced the move to the public when everything was ready.
So come October 14th when the Icemen host in-state rival Orlando, hockey will be back in Jacksonville. What will the city’s hockey fans find? For one thing, they will see that this is not the ECHL of the 1990’s where franchises seemed to be granted to any city that could produce a sheet of ice to play on (at one point, the state of Louisiana had no less than five teams playing at the same time). These days, having a solid franchise infrastructure is much more important than just having a building to play in.
In the next article, we’ll take a look at how far the ECHL has come since it called Jacksonville home…
Story by Kenneth.Holdren@prohockeynews.com
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