United Hockey League (1992-1997) International Hockey League (2007-2010) Central Hockey League (2010-2011) Born: September 21, 2005 – UHL expansion franchise Folded: May/June 2011 First Game:
In the spring of 1999, Glens Falls, New York lost its longtime minor league hockey club, the Adirondack Red Wings. For 20 seasons, the Wings were the top farm club of the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings. The team won four Calder Cups as champions of the American Hockey League during the 1980’s and early 1990’s and routinely packed the small city’s 4,800-seat Civic Arena in those years. Into the void left by the Red Wings stepped Art & Lori Shaver, who moved their United Hockey League franchise from Winston-Salem, North Carolina to Glens Falls in June of 1999.
The IceHawks were part of a procession of short-lived minor league hockey clubs that cycled through Winston-Salem, North Carolina during the 1990’s and early 2000’s. The IceHawks followed the Thunderbirds (1989-1992) and Mammoths (1995-1996) and preceded the T-Birds (2003-2004), Polar Twins (2004-2005) and Cyclones (2007-2009). Winston-Salem was an odd fit for the United Hockey League in 1997. The UHL’s other nine franchises were clustered in the upper Midwest, Ontario and upstate New York.
The Madison Kodiaks were a One-Year Wonder in the now-defunct United Hockey League during the winter of 1999-00. The Wisconsin capital’s prior UHL club, the Madison Monsters (1995-1999), departed for Knoxville, Tennessee in April 1999. The UHL quickly expanded back to Madison, awarding an expansion franchise to a group headed by former Monsters General Manager Leo Hunstiger. After one season of low attendance and substantial financial losses, the franchise moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan in July 2000.
After the International Hockey League’s Muskegon Lumberjacks abandoned the Western Michigan city in favor of Cleveland in 1992, a former Lumberjacks staffer named Tony Lisman swiftly organized a new franchise in the cheaper, lower-profile Colonial Hockey League. Lisman’s Muskegon Fury entered the CoHL as an expansion franchise in the fall of 1992. The Fury were remarkably successful on the ice. The team never posted a losing season or missed the playoffs in 16 years of play and won four Colonial Cup championships. In 2008, the team reclaimed the “Lumberjacks” name, bringing the successful Fury era to a close.
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