West Coast Hockey League

The West Coast Hockey League was a professional minor ice hockey league active in the western United States from 1995 to 2003. The number of teams ranged from six to nine. The teams were located in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Washington.

The surviving teams of the West Coast Hockey League are part of the ECHL.

The WCHL was a successor organization of the semi-professional Pacific Hockey League. Three former PHL teams, the Alaska Gold Kings (Fairbanks, Alaska), Anchorage Aces (Anchorage, Alaska), and Fresno Falcons (Fresno, California) were joined by the Bakersfield Fog (Bakersfield, California), Reno Renegades (Reno, Nevada) and San Diego Gulls (San Diego, California) to become the founding member teams of the WCHL. The league retained these teams in a single division for its first two seasons, and played regular season games against a "Red Army" team from Russia (CKA-Amur, now Amur Khabarovsk).

In the league's third season in 1997–98 the Alaska Gold Kings suspended operations. The remaining teams were joined by the expansion Idaho Steelheads (Boise, Idaho), Phoenix Mustangs (Phoenix, Arizona), Tacoma Sabercats (Tacoma, Washington) and Tucson Gila Monsters (Tucson, Arizona). The larger league was then split into Northern and Southern Divisions. The teams in Reno and Fresno changed their names to the Reno Rage and Fresno's Fighting Falcons respectively.