2008–09 ECHL season
| 2008–09 ECHL season | |
|---|---|
| League | ECHL |
| Sport | Ice hockey |
| Duration | October 17, 2008 – June 5, 2009 |
| Regular season | |
| Brabham Cup | Florida Everblades |
| Season MVP | Kevin Baker (Florida) |
| Top scorer | Kevin Baker (Florida) |
| Playoffs | |
| American champions | South Carolina Stingrays |
| American runners-up | Cincinnati Cyclones |
| National champions | Alaska Aces |
| National runners-up | Las Vegas Wranglers |
| Playoffs Playoffs MVP | James Reimer |
| Finals | |
| Champions | South Carolina Stingrays |
| Runners-up | Alaska Aces |
The 2008–09 ECHL season was the 21st of the ECHL. The league welcomed one new franchise, the Ontario Reign, which will relocate from Beaumont, Texas and will play at the Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario, CA. Two teams, the Columbia Inferno and the Myrtle Beach Thunderboltz, will voluntary suspend operations for the season with plans on returning in the 2009–10 season. The Myrtle Beach franchise were originally planning to return to operations, but their home arena had not been completed in time for the Board of Governors Meeting during the All-Star Break. The league announced that they were immediately terminating the Pensacola Ice Pilots franchise, because the team's owners did not intend on fielding a team for the 2008–09 season or any season after that. The team was a founding member of the ECHL as the Nashville Knights and moved to Pensacola, Florida after the 1995–96 season.
The league also saw the return of the Fresno Falcons to Selland Arena, after the team spent its first five seasons in the ECHL at the Save Mart Center on the campus of California State University, Fresno. However, this was short-lived, as Fresno joined the Augusta Lynx in suspending operations during the month of December.
On June 23, the ECHL announced the new divisional alignment of its 23 franchises. The league saw three teams vacate the South Division of the American Conference shrinking the division from nine to six teams and added a franchise to the Pacific Division of the National Conference increasing the division total from four teams to five. There will be thirteen teams in the American Conference, which stretches from New York south to Florida and from Mississippi east to New Jersey, and ten teams in the National Conference which stretches from Alaska south to Arizona.
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