Wheeling Thunderbirds
| Wheeling Nailers | |
|---|---|
 2016–17 ECHL season
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| City | Wheeling, West Virginia |
| League | ECHL |
| Conference | Eastern |
| Division | North |
| Founded | 1981 (In the ACHL) |
| Home arena | WesBanco Arena |
| Colors | Black, Vegas gold, white |
| Owner(s) | Hockey Club of the Ohio Valley |
| Head coach | Jeff Christian |
| Captain | Derek Army |
| Media |
Wheeling News Register WKWK Mix 97.3 FM WTRF-TV channel 7 WTOV-TV channel 9 |
| Affiliates |
Pittsburgh Penguins (NHL) Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins (AHL) |
| Franchise history | |
| 1981–82 | Winston-Salem Thunderbirds |
| 1982–89 | Carolina Thunderbirds |
| 1989–92 | Winston-Salem Thunderbirds |
| 1992–96 | Wheeling Thunderbirds |
| 1996–present | Wheeling Nailers |
| Championships | |
| Regular season titles | 2 (1992–93, 1994–95) |
| Division Championships | 3 (1992–93, 1994–95, 2003–04) |
| Conference Championships | 2 (1992–93, 2015–16) |
The Wheeling Nailers are an ECHL ice hockey team based in Wheeling, West Virginia. They are the ECHL affiliate of the Pittsburgh Penguins of the NHL and the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins of the AHL.
The Nailers are the oldest surviving minor league franchise below the level of the American Hockey League, with unbroken continuity of franchise and never having missed a season of play.
The Nailers began play in 1981 in the Atlantic Coast Hockey League as the Carolina Thunderbirds based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The Thunderbirds were hugely successful on the ice, winning four consecutive regular season titles and were three-time Bob Paine Trophy winners as league champions. In 1987, the ACHL folded and the team joined the All-American Hockey League, which lasted just the 1987–88 season. The Thunderbirds, Virginia Lancers, and Johnstown Chiefs then became the basis for the East Coast Hockey League, now known as the ECHL. The Thunderbirds lost the first ECHL playoff championship final to the Toledo Storm. The team was renamed Winston-Salem Thunderbirds in 1990 and moved to Wheeling to become the Wheeling Thunderbirds in 1992 under the leadership of president and co-owner Ed Broyhill.
After a trademark dispute with the Seattle Thunderbirds of the Western Hockey League, the team was renamed Nailers for the 1996–97 season when the franchise held a contest open to local fans, which was won by C. J. Wickham of Steubenville, Ohio. The name "Nailers" was chosen for the city's long history of nail manufacturing. For the 2012–13 season, the Nailers dropped the red-black-gold scheme they had used for nearly two decades in favor of a black-and-gold palette used by the Penguins.
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