Quad City Mallards
| Quad City Mallards | |
|---|---|
 2016–17 ECHL season
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| City | Moline, Illinois |
| League | ECHL |
| Conference | Western |
| Division | Central |
| Founded | 2009 (In the IHL) |
| Home arena | i wireless Center |
| Colors | Black, green, orange, white |
| Head coach | Phil Axtell |
| Captain | Darren McMillan |
| Affiliates |
Minnesota Wild (NHL) Iowa Wild (AHL) |
| Franchise history | |
| 2009–present | Quad City Mallards |
The Quad City Mallards are a minor league professional ice hockey team based in the Quad Cities area of Illinois and Iowa. The Mallards are a member of the ECHL. Named in honor of the Mallards team that played in the United Hockey League from 1995 to 2007, the current Mallards debuted in 2009 in the International Hockey League before joining the CHL for the 2010–11 season after the CHL and IHL merged. The Mallards play their home games at i wireless Center in Moline, Illinois.
The original Mallards franchise played in the Quad Cities from the 1995–96 season through the 2006–07 season. Their first two seasons of existence were played in the Colonial Hockey League, which was renamed the United Hockey League (UHL) in 1997. The Mallards were an overwhelming success in their first few years, with attendance figures that regularly topped 6,000 per game. Attendance peaked in the 1997–98 season at over 8,500 fans per game, and while it declined, average attendance remained over 6,000 fans per game through the 2001–02 season. It continued to drop, though, until it reached a low of 3,120 fans per game in the Mallards' final UHL season in 2006–07.
In 2009, a new ownership group brought hockey back after two seasons and named the new team in honor of the former team.
On May 11, 2011, the Mallards originally ceased operations due to a lack of funding, but almost a month later, Club 9 Sports, a consortium between Chicago-based investment bank Prometheus Capital Partners, LLC, management and consulting firm Tobacco Road Capitalists and sports management and marketing firm ScheerSports, Inc. (headed by former National Basketball Association general manager Carl Scheer) bought the team from former owner Eric Karls and announced the team would return for the 2011–12 Central Hockey League season.
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