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Miami Matadors

TeamLogo

Founded 1998
Home ice Miami Arena
Based in Miami, Florida
League ECHL

The Miami Matadors were an ice hockey team in the ECHL. They played in Miami, Florida, USA at the Miami Arena for just one season before moving.

Seasons: 1998
Arena: Miami Arena (capacity 14,823)
Logo design: Grimacing Matador with hockey stick
Season Played: 1 (1998-1999)

History[]

The Miami Matadors were a hockey team in the ECHL. The franchise began as the Louisville Riverfrogs in 1995, moving to Miami in 1998. Although they hoped to make it by offering inexpensive seats and a good hockey product, the local fans were, sadly, not interested. As a result, they only played one season there before moving on to Cincinnati to become the Cyclones. The team was owned by Bob Snyder and ultimately failed due to a lack of funding and a lack of fan support. In fact, the last few two home games were played in Estero, Florida at Germain Arena home of the Florida Everblades. Matador season ticket holders were given free tickets to the games there, though most chose not to make the two-hour drive.

It was a bittersweet end to a great idea. Unlike the poorly run Miami Manatees that would follow in the WHA2, Matadors management made an honest effort to become involved with the community, and were even a minor-league affiliate with the National Hockey League's Florida Panthers.

In their single season, the Matadors finished with a 28-32-10 record, finishing seventh in the ECHL's Southeast Division. The team's leading scorer was ex-Brown University center Michael Flynn, with 20 goals and 50 assists; center Greg Clancy was the leading goal scorer with 28. Among other notable Matadors were veteran minor league star Sheldon Gorski and goaltender Brent Belecki.


External links[]

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Miami Matadors. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Ice Hockey Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License 3.0 (Unported) (CC-BY-SA).


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