Colorado Eagles

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Colorado Eagles
2022–23 AHL season
Colorado Eagles logo.svg
City Loveland, Colorado
League American Hockey League
Conference Western
Division Pacific
Founded 2003 (In the CHL)
Home arena Budweiser Events Center
Colors                    
Owner(s) Colorado Eagles Professional Hockey LLC
General manager Craig Billington[1]
Head coach Vacant
Captain Brad Hunt
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Affiliates Colorado Avalanche (NHL)
Utah Grizzlies (ECHL)
Franchise history
2003–present Colorado Eagles
Championships
Regular season titles 3 (2005, 2006, 2009)
Division Championships 8 (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2016, 2018)
Conference Championships 7 (2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2017, 2018)
Ray Miron President's Cup 2 (2005, 2007)
Kelly Cups 2 (2017, 2018)

The Colorado Eagles are a professional minor league ice hockey team based in Loveland, Colorado. The Eagles play in the Pacific Division of the American Hockey League.

The Eagles were founded as an expansion franchise in 2003 in the Central Hockey League and remained in the league until June 2011, when they joined the ECHL. During their time in the CHL, the Eagles won two Ray Miron President's Cups, three regular season titles, five conference titles and six division titles in eight seasons. The team was granted a membership as an expansion team in the American Hockey League beginning with the 2018–19 season as the affiliate of the Colorado Avalanche of the National Hockey League.

The Eagles play at the Budweiser Events Center in Loveland and serve the Fort Collins – Loveland Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Franchise history

Central Hockey League era (2003–2011)

The franchise was founded in 2003 by former Montreal Canadiens player Ralph Backstrom.[2] The Eagles advanced to the playoffs in their first season and won the CHL championship in their second season, 2004–05. They won their division in 2005–06, but lost in the second round of the playoffs to the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs, after having defeated the Oklahoma City Blazers in the first round. They would again win the CHL Championship in 2006–07, defeating the Laredo Bucks four games to two in the Cup Finals.

After the 2007–08 season, coach Chris Stewart retired, and Kevin McClelland was named as his replacement. Following the 2009–10 season, McClelland was not retained and Stewart, who had been working as team president and general manager since leaving the bench, resumed head coaching duties.

During the 2008–09 season, the Eagles hosted the 2009 CHL All-Star Game and took on a group of CHL All-Stars from various teams. The exhibition took place on January 14, 2009, at the Budweiser Events Center, with the Eagles defeating the CHL All-Stars, 8–4.

Move to ECHL (2011–2018)

During the 2011 Ray Miron President's Cup playoffs, the Eagles had been rumored to be transferring to the ECHL following the completion of the playoffs.[3][4] Former International Hockey League commissioner Dennis Hextall has stated that he had heard that the Colorado Eagles may already be included in the ECHL's tentative schedule for the 2011–12 season.[5]

On May 29, 2011, KEVN-TV in Rapid City, South Dakota reported that Colorado was to move to the ECHL in time for the 2011–12 season.[6] The following day, the team announced that they would have a press conference on May 31 at the Budweiser Events Center and that local media were urged to attend and fans urged to listen to the press conference online or on a local radio station.[7] At the press conference, Head Coach, General Manager and President Chris Stewart announced that the team had been accepted as an expansion franchise in the ECHL for the 2011–12 season.

In August 2011, the Eagles were assigned to the Western Conference's Mountain Division as part of the league realignment for the 2011–12 ECHL season.[8]

They served as the second-tier affiliate of the National Hockey League's Winnipeg Jets and the American Hockey League's St. John's IceCaps until the end of the 2012–13 hockey season[9] and then as the Calgary Flames and Adirondack Flames affiliate during the 2014–15 season.

In July 2016, head coach Chris Stewart retired as coach for the second time but remained with the organization as general manager.[10] He was replaced by assistant coach and longtime Eagles player, Aaron Schneekloth.[11] On July 20, the Eagles announced a four-year affiliation with the NHL's Colorado Avalanche and the AHL's San Antonio Rampage after one season of playing independent of affiliations.[12] In their first season with the Avalanche affiliation, the Eagles would go on to finish second in the Mountain Division of the ECHL and then win the Kelly Cup as the 2017 playoffs champions. In their last season in the ECHL in 2017–18, the Eagles finished with back-to-back Kelly Cups with the 2018 playoff championship. Traditionally, the Kelly Cup is held by the winning team during the following season and returned before the playoffs, but the Eagles did not return the trophy to the league after leaving for the AHL and it had to be replaced.[13][14][15] They eventually sent it to the 2019 ECHL champion Newfoundland Growlers before opening night of the 2019–20 ECHL season.[16]

Move to the AHL

For the 2017–18 season, the National Hockey League added the Vegas Golden Knights as a 31st team. The approval of a new NHL team also led to discussions of adding a 31st team in the American Hockey League.[17] With the Golden Knights choosing to affiliate with the Chicago Wolves instead of adding their own AHL expansion team, talks with other organizations were opened. The owners and managers of the Eagles began discussions with the Avalanche with interests into becoming an AHL expansion for the 2018–19 season.[18] On October 10, 2017, the Avalanche and the Eagles officially announced that the club would be promoted to the AHL in 2018.[19][20]

The Avalanche hired Greg Cronin as the Eagles' first AHL head coach and retained former head coach Aaron Schneekloth as an assistant.[21]

Season records

Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, OTL = Overtime losses, SOL=shootout losses, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against, PIM = Penalties in minutes

Records as of end of the 2022–23 AHL season.[22]

Regular season Playoffs
Season GP W L OTL SOL Pts GF GA PIM Finish Year Prelims 1st round 2nd round 3rd round Finals
Central Hockey League
2003–04 64 43 16 0 5 91 232 156 1453 1st, Northwest 2004 L, 1–3, WIC
2004–05 60 43 10 5 2 93 221 123 1345 1st, Northwest 2005 W, 4–1, TUL W, 4–2, WIC W, 4–1, LAR
2005–06 64 44 14 0 6 94 241 183 1898 1st, Northwest 2006 W, 4–3, OKC L, 1–4, BS
2006–07 64 46 17 0 1 93 256 182 1944 1st, Northwest 2007 W, 4–2, YNG W, 4–3, OKC W, 4–2, MEM W, 4–2, LAR
2007–08 64 37 20 2 5 81 254 223 1637 1st, Northwest 2008 BYE W, 4–1, YNG W, 4–3, TEX L, 0–4, ARZ
2008–09 64 45 15 1 3 94 275 195 1429 1st, Northwest 2009 BYE W, 4–0, BS W, 4–2, MIS L, 1–4, TEX
2009–10 64 42 15 5 2 91 277 208 1557 2nd, Northern 2010 BYE L, 0–4, BS
2010–11 66 40 22 2 2 84 250 199 1352 2nd, Turner 2011 W, 3–1, QC W, 3–1, MO W, 4–3, RC L, 3–4 BS
ECHL
2011–12 72 38 28 1 5 82 250 252 1485 2nd, Mountain 2012 L, 0–3, STK
2012–13 72 34 31 3 4 75 239 224 1534 3rd, Mountain 2013 L, 2–4, IDA
2013–14 71 33 26 7 5 78 211 218 1158 4th, Mountain 2014 L, 2–4, IDA
2014–15 72 41 23 4 4 90 236 209 1457 3rd, Pacific 2015 L, 3–4, ONT
2015–16 72 41 27 3 1 86 232 193 1427 1st, West 2016 L, 2–4, UTA
2016–17 72 47 20 2 3 99 265 206 1415 2nd, Mountain 2017 W, 4–1, IDA W, 4–2, ALN W, 4–1, TOL W, 4–0 SC
2017–18 72 48 18 4 2 102 265 214 1377 1st, Mountain 2018 W, 4–2, WIC W, 4–0, IDA W, 4–3, FW W, 4–3, FLA
American Hockey League
2018–19 68 36 27 4 1 77 191 205 1114 4th, Pacific 2019 L, 1–3, BAK
2019–20 56 34 18 3 1 72 188 162 683 2nd, Pacific 2020 Season cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic
2020–21 34 15 15 3 1 34 101 104 318 5th, Pacific 2021[lower-alpha 1] OTW, 5–4, ONT L, 1–5, SJ
2021–22 68 39 22 4 3 85 244 207 815 3rd, Pacific 2022 W, 2–0, HSK W, 3–0, ONT L, 1–3, STK
2022–23 72 40 22 7 3 90 210 187 1000 3rd, Pacific 2023 W, 2–0, ONT L, 2–3, CV
  1. The 2021 Calder Cup playoffs were not held; the Pacific Division held a postseason tournament for the division title. The bottom four teams had single-elimination play-in games to qualify for the semifinals (the first two rounds). The division semifinals and finals were best-of-three for the John D. Chick Trophy (the last two rounds).

Players

Current roster

Updated May 25, 2023.[23]

# Nat Player Pos S/G Age Acquired Birthplace Contract
5 United States Wyatt Aamodt D L 26 2022 Hermantown, Minnesota Avalanche
60 Finland Justus Annunen G L 24 2021 Kempele, Finland Avalanche
74 Canada Alex Beaucage RW R 22 2021 Trois-Rivières, Quebec Avalanche
68 United States Callahan Burke C R 27 2020 Boxborough, Massachusetts Avalanche
84 United States Nate Clurman D R 25 2021 Boulder, Colorado Avalanche
82 United States David Farrance D R 24 2022 Victor, New York Eagles
93 Canada Jean-Luc Foudy C R 21 2021 Toronto, Ontario Avalanche
10 United States Alex Galchenyuk C L 30 2022 Milwaukee, Wisconsin Avalanche
54 Canada Charles Hudon LW L 29 2022 Alma, Quebec Avalanche
7 Canada Brad Hunt (C) D L 35 2022 Maple Ridge, British Columbia Avalanche
41 United States Josh Jacobs D R 28 2022 Shelby Township, Michigan Avalanche
31 Sweden Jonas Johansson G L 28 2022 Gavle, Sweden Avalanche
15 Canada Kale Kessy LW L 31 2023 Shaunavon, Saskatchewan Eagles
35 United States Keith Kinkaid G L 34 2023 Farmingville, New York Avalanche
76 United States Sam Malinski D R 25 2023 Lakeville, Minnesota Avalanche
57 Russia Mikhail Maltsev LW/C L 26 2021 Saint Petersburg, Russia Avalanche
22 Canada Ryan Merkley D R 23 2023 Oakville, Ontario Avalanche
59 United States Ben Meyers C L 25 2022 Delano, Minnesota Avalanche
67 Canada Keaton Middleton (A) D L 26 2020 Stratford, Ontario Avalanche
25 Sweden Oskar Olausson RW L 21 2022 Stockholm, Sweden Avalanche
65 Canada Cedric Pare C L 25 2022 Levis, Quebec Eagles
3 Czech Republic Ondřej Pavel C L 23 2023 Prague, Czech Republic Avalanche
81 United States Jason Polin RW R 24 2023 Holt, Michigan Avalanche
88 United States Ryan Sandelin RW R 25 2023 Hermantown, Minnesota Eagles
20 Canada Justin Scott RW L 28 2022 Burlington, Ontario Eagles
38 Canada Spencer Smallman RW R 27 2022 Summerside, Prince Edward Island Avalanche
73 Canada Dalton Smith LW L 31 2021 Oshawa, Ontario Eagles
71 Canada Matt Stienburg (ATO) RW R 23 2023 Halifax, Nova Scotia Eagles
14 Canada Mitchell Vande Sompel D L 27 2022 London, Ontario Eagles
13 United States Ryan Wagner (A) LW L 27 2019 Park Ridge, Illinois Eagles

Team captains

Retired numbers

Colorado Eagles retired numbers
No. Player Position Career No. retirement
12 Riley Nelson C 2003–2014 December 12, 2014[24]
17 Ryan Tobler LW 2003–2010 March 27, 2015[25]
23 Aaron Schneekloth D 2006–2013 March 22, 2019[26]
27 Brad Williamson D 2003–2008 March 22, 2019[26]
89 Greg Pankewicz RW 2003–2009 October 16, 2009[27]

Awards and honors

Ray Miron President's Cup
CHL playoff champion

Kelly Cup
ECHL playoff champion

Bud Poile Governors' Cup
CHL regular season champion

Conference playoff championship

Division titles

References

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External links