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The Knoxville Ice Bears are a professional ice hockey team. The team competes in the Southern Professional Hockey League. They play their home games at James White Civic Coliseum in Knoxville, Tennessee. In 2006 the Ice Bears defeated the Florida Seals to take the SPHL championship and the President's Cup. They have also won the Commissioner's Cup for the best record in the SPHL in the regular season the first two seasons of the SPHL's existence. In 2008, Knoxville did the double again winning both the Commissioner's and President's Cups.
[edit] History
The Knoxville Ice Bears were founded in 2002 as a charter member of the Atlantic Coast Hockey League. After finishing as runner up to the Orlando Seals in the 2002-2003 season, the Ice Bears moved to the new South Eastern Hockey League. Again, they finished as a runner up in the playoffs to the Huntsville Channel Cats for 2003-2004. The team again moved hockey leagues and joined with the new Southern Professional Hockey League. In the SPHL's first season, the Ice Bears won the regular season championship Commissioner's Cup but lost in the second round (after a first round bye) to the eventual champions for 2004-2005, the Columbus Cottonmouths. Finally, in 2005-2006, the Ice Bears secured the Commissioner's Cup and the President's Cup by beating the Florida Seals in Game 4 of a best-of-5 series. In 2006-2007 the team was eliminated in the league semifinals with two straight losses to the Fayetteville FireAntz. In 2007-2008, the Ice Bears once again secured the Commissioners Cup, now renamed the William B. Coffey Trophy. In the 2008 President Cup playoffs the Ice Bears faced the Columbus Cottonmouths in the opening round after winning the first two games in Knoxville (4-2 & 5-2) the Ice Bears dropped the next two in Columbus by the identical score of 4-2. In the fifth and deciding game the Ice Bears won comfortably on home ice 6-3. The championship, Best-of-Five, series started on April 10th with Knoxville coming out on top of the Jacksonville Barracudas 6-2. The scene switched to Jacksonville for game two on April 12th where the Ice Bears pulled out a hard fought 4-3 win. The brooms were out at the Knoxville Civic Coliseum the following night (April 13) and the Ice Bears didn’t disappoint as they jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead, but Jacksonville fought back to tie the game at 2-2 after 20 minutes. However, in the second period Tim Vitek scored to put Knoxville ahead to stay and added another in the third for the final score of 4-2. Rookie goalie Kirk Irving took home playoff MVP honors. The President Cup title was the Ice Bears second in three years.
[edit] Coaching history
[edit] Captain history
[edit] Championships
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