Louisville Franchise in MWHL Forced To Move
8-25-08

The Midwest Hockey League announced Monday that the franchise rights to the Louisville Chill have been sold to an ownership group in St. Louis, Missouri. After months of trying to develop the franchise in the Louisville market, it was determined that viability of the team was in question. Lack of interest from local business, as well as available ice time forced the MWHL to look for another market for franchise to play in.

The franchise rights now belong to an ownership group in a suburb of St. Louis and the team will play in the leagues inaugural 2008-2009 season. The ownership group will release the new team name and arena this week.

MWHL President Wade Stuckey was openly disappointed about the move. “We are thrilled to be getting a market like St. Louis, but it is somewhat bittersweet,” Stuckey said from the league offices in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. “We did everything that we could to make Louisville work, but at this level you need a lot of cooperation from the community and the local facility, and we just weren’t able to finalize the deal.”

Evansville IceMen General Manager Chip Rossetti echoed Stuckey’s sentiment. “We hate to see Louisville go, especially down here in Evansville, because there was going to be a great natural rivalry. But as a member of the leagues Board of Directors, I have to look at this for the good of the league. Louisville would have been great, but we weren’t able to make it happen as we had hoped. St. Louis is going to be a great market for us and we think that the franchise can be very successful up there.”

The MWHL will announce the final roster of teams and the season schedule in the next week.