Playoff ready

The league honors the Ice Bears, selecting 4 players and its coach for all star recognition...

The Ice Bears open the post-season tomorrow night in defense of the president's cup - looking to become the first SPHL team to win back-to-back playoff championships. Coach Hillman said, "We are trying to get sharper, now we feel like we are getting back to a little more consistent hockey, to where we feel when we enter the game that we are going to win that hockey game, and that is the feeling we need heading into playoffs." The Knoxville hockey club faces its chief rival - the Huntsville Havoc - in round one

The boys got a taste of their success over the weekend when the league commissioner, accompanied by the SPHL's director of operations presented the "Coffey trophy" - honoring the Ice Bears for clinching the regular season title for the 2nd year in a row, and for the 4th time in 5 seasons.

Ice Bears captain Kevin Swider accepted the award - but hockey superstition prevents players from skating the regular season trophy until after the playoffs. "Obviously we accomplished our first goal that we set for the beginning of the year,” Swider said. “You know that's kind of what we've been working for since day one and just getting past that and our focus is just on the playoffs, just kinda getting our feet under us before we get into the playoff run."

The Ice Bears record through the 60-game SPHL regular season schedule is 35 wins, 16 losses, and 9 overtime losses, good for 79 points - that 79 points is an SPHL record for most points in a season.

Another SPHL team is in financial trouble - the Twin City Cyclones are planning to leave Winston-Salem and are now looking for a new city to relocate to. The Winston-Salem journal reports the Cyclones told the Winston-Salem entertainment sports complex that they would be suspending operations for the 2009-2010 season.

The cyclones finished last in league attendance - the North Carolina franchise drew an average 11-hundred fans a game, for a total of nearly 34,000 through 30 games...that's less than one-third the fans the Ice Bears attracted this season.



Picture courtesy of *NAME* via Volzeye.com