City Peoria, Illinois Colors Red, navy, gold, white Arena/Stadium Peoria Civic Center Founded 2013 Regular season titles 2 | Home arena Carver Arena General manager David Holt Head coach Jean-Guy Trudel Color Red, navy, gold, white Parent organization Vancouver Canucks | |
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League Southern Professional Hockey League Owner(s) Illinois Pro Sports, LLC Location Peoria, Illinois, United States | ||
The Peoria Rivermen are a professional ice hockey team in the Southern Professional Hockey League. They play in Peoria, Illinois, United States at the Carver Arena. 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.
History
On May 13, 2013, it was reported by the Journal Star 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 Southern Professional Hockey League 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 of the struggling Central Hockey League 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-pro hockey team in the coming year. The Rivermen are one of the few teams in the SPHL outside of the southern United States, along with the Thunder (2013–14 season only) and the Evansville Thunderbolts (starting in the 2016–17 season).