Corpus Christi, Texas



Corpus Christi is a city of Texas, United States. It's the eight largest of the state with a population of 285,175 (estimation from 2006).

Hockey in Corpus Christi
The IceRays franchise was an expansion team in the Western Professional Hockey League for the 1998-1999 season. The team moved over to the Central Hockey League when the leagues merged. The team used a variation of the spelling IceRayz for the period 2003-2008. The team folded after the 2009-2010 season. The ownership of the team had already purchased the Alpena Ice Diggers franchise of the North American Hockey League and moved the team to Corpus Christi for the 2010-2011 season. This moved was done in response to there being fewer Central Hockey League franchises being left in Texas. There were nine franchises in the state of Texas when the WPHL and CHL merged, the league is down to two franchises as of the start of the 2012-2013 season. The NAHL has five franchises in the state of Texas for the start of the 2012-2013 season, three of which are former Central Hockey League cities.

Teams

 * Corpus Christi IceRays
 * Western Professional Hockey League (1998-2001) league merges into Central Hockey League


 * Central Hockey League (2001-2010) folded, used IceRayz for nickname from 2003-2008


 * North American Hockey League (2010-Present)

Arenas

 * Memorial Coliseum (Corpus Christi)(1954-2010) nicknamed "the Igloo" due to how cold the building was even during the relatively mild winter
 * American Bank Center (2004-Present)

Players

 * Brian Leetch