International Hockey League (1945–2001)

For the league of the same name that ran from 2007 to 2010, please see International Hockey League (2007–2010).

The International Hockey League (IHL) was a minor professional ice hockey league in the United States and Canada that operated from 1945 to 2001. The International Hockey League served as the National Hockey League's alternate farm system to the American Hockey League (AHL). After 56 years of operation with financial instability, the International Hockey League ceased operations after the 2000-01 season. Six teams from the IHL merged into the rival American Hockey League as expansion teams in 2001.

Early years
The IHL was formed in December 1945 and initially consisted of four cross-border teams in Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. In 1947, a team from Toledo, Ohio joined the league, and the following year the IHL expanded significantly, with teams in four additional U.S. cities. The expansion did not take hold, and for 1949–50, the league was back down to teams in Detroit and Windsor as well as two nearby Canadian cities, Sarnia, Ontario and Chatham, Ontario. Windsor dropped out in 1950, and expansion into the U.S. began again, with Toledo rejoining the league and new teams in Grand Rapids, Michigan (1950), Troy, Ohio, (1951), Cincinnati (1952), Fort Wayne, Indiana (1952), and Milwaukee (1952). At the same time, the last Canadian team left the league in 1952, when the Chatham Maroons pulled out. Three new U.S. cities were added in 1953. The league would expand and shrink between five and nine teams through the 1950s, with another major expansion in 1959. In the 1962–63 season, the IHL played an interlocking schedule with the NHL-owned Eastern Professional Hockey League, which itself folded in 1963. After 11 seasons as a strictly U.S.-based league, the IHL admitted two Canadian teams in 1963, with the Windsor Bulldogs and the return of the Chatham Maroons. Both teams dropped out after one season. The league did not have a Canadian team again until 1996.

Major market expansion
Starting in the late 1960s, the IHL's quality of play significantly improved. By the mid-1970s it was on par with the American Hockey League (AHL), the longtime top feeder league for the National Hockey League. Many IHL teams became the top farm teams of NHL teams. In 1984, the league absorbed many surviving members of the Central Hockey League, which had ceased operations. Beginning in the late 1980s, the IHL began an expansion into major markets such as Atlanta, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Orlando, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, and San Francisco. Many of these were markets that had been served by the defunct World Hockey Association or abandoned by the NHL, but the IHL also placed teams in markets that already had NHL teams, such as Chicago, Detroit, and Long Beach (near Los Angeles). In the mid-1990s, the IHL moved its Atlanta and Minneapolis–Saint Paul franchises to Quebec City and Winnipeg respectively, restoring the league's Canadian presence and filling the void left by the departure of the NHL's Quebec Nordiques and Winnipeg Jets.

The league's expansion into larger markets was rapid, spearheaded by media mogul Ted Turner, and many of the smaller-market teams (such as Fort Wayne and Kalamazoo) fell away, joining lower-level leagues such as the United Hockey League and the East Coast Hockey League.

Decline and collapse
The IHL's expansion into NHL markets put a strain on relationships between the leagues. There was some speculation that the IHL was intending to compete directly with the NHL, especially when a lock-out in 1994 threatened to wipe out the NHL season. However, in the 1995-96 season, the IHL's "soft" salary cap was just $1.5 million, while the lowest NHL team payroll that season was $11.4 million.

In response, many NHL clubs shifted their affiliations to the AHL, and by 1997–98, only four of 18 IHL teams had NHL affiliations. With the loss of subsidized salaries, high expansion fees (by the end the league was charging as much as $8 million US for new teams), exploding travel costs, the NHL itself moving back into some of its markets, and the league's rapid expansion proved a critical strain, the 2000-01 season ended up being the final season of the IHL. The IHL did not merge into the American Hockey League. Instead, six franchises from the IHL merged into the AHL as expansion franchises and the IHL ceased operations.

The six IHL franchises that were admitted into the American Hockey League as expansion teams were the Chicago Wolves, Grand Rapids Griffins, Houston Aeros, Utah Grizzlies, Milwaukee Admirals and Manitoba Moose for the 2001-02 season. Among them, the Chicago Wolves (2002, 2008), Houston Aeros (2003), and Milwaukee Admirals (2004) have all won Calder Cup titles since joining the AHL from the IHL. The Cincinnati Cyclones were admitted back to the East Coast Hockey League, which hosted the team from 1990-1992 before they moved to the IHL. The Orlando Solar Bears (the final IHL champions) and the Kansas City Blades were not admitted into the AHL because their owner, Rich DeVos, also owned the Griffins, and could only own one AHL franchise. The league's other two teams (the Cleveland Lumberjacks & the Detroit Vipers) ceased operations with the league.

Two of the former IHL teams that moved to the AHL have since relocated, as the Utah Grizzlies moved to Cleveland, Ohio to become the Lake Erie Monsters in 2007, and the Manitoba Moose moved to St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador to become the St. John's IceCaps in 2011. As well, two IHL franchises have been relaunched in the ECHL since the IHL's demise, those being the Utah Grizzlies (formerly the Lexington Men O' War) in 2005 and the expansion Orlando Solar Bears in 2012. Also, the Worcester IceCats moved to Peoria, Illinois in 2005 and took the name of yet another former IHL franchise, the Peoria Rivermen.

Trophies and awards
See Also List of International Hockey League trophies


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