Evansville Thunderbolts
| Evansville Thunderbolts | |
|---|---|
 2016–17 SPHL season
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| City | Evansville, Indiana |
| League | Southern Professional Hockey League |
| Founded | 2016 |
| Home arena | Ford Center |
| Colors | Red, white, blue |
| Owner(s) | VW Sports, LLC. |
| General manager | Mike Hall |
| Head coach | Jeff Pyle |
| Franchise history | |
| 2016–present | Evansville Thunderbolts |
The Evansville Thunderbolts are a minor league ice hockey team in the Southern Professional Hockey League. The team plays at the Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana. The team replaced the Evansville IceMen of the ECHL.
During the 2015–16 season, the City of Evansville and the owner of the ECHL's Evansville IceMen, Ron Geary, were unable to agree to a new lease for the IceMen to continue to operate out of the Ford Center. On January 19, 2016, Geary announced that he had agreed to terms with the nearby city of Owensboro, Kentucky to relocate the team to the Owensboro Sports Center.
On February 8, 2016, Evansville mayor, Lloyd Winnecke, announced that local businessman and IceMen season ticket holder, Mike Hall, had secured an expansion team in the Southern Professional Hockey League to play at the Ford Center beginning in the 2016–17 season, thus displacing the IceMen franchise from Evansville. On March 1, the City of Evansville and the new team signed a five-year lease agreement to play at the Ford Center. Hall would act as general manager while the majority owner was VW Sports, LLC., a subsidiary of VenuWorks, Inc., the arena management company.
On March 22, 2016, former IceMen head coach Jeff Pyle was announced as the head coach for its inaugural season. The new team name was announced on April 15, 2016, taken from the P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft which was manufactured in Evansville during the Second World War. Near the end of the first season, Mike Hall sold his portion of the team to VW Sports, LLC.
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