The Birmingham Bulls are a professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

team in

Pelham, Alabama Pelham is a city in Shelby County, Alabama, United States. It incorporated in July 1964 and is a suburb located in the Birmingham metropolitan area, Alabama which was home to over 1.1 million residents as of the 2020 census. At the 2000 census ...

, that began to play in the 2017–18 season as a member of the

Southern Professional Hockey League The Southern Professional Hockey League (SPHL) is a professional ice hockey independent minor league based in Huntersville, North Carolina, with teams located primarily in the southeastern United States as well as Illinois and Indiana in the mid ...

. The team is named after the previous

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

-area teams in the

World Hockey Association The World Hockey Association (french: Association mondiale de hockey) was a professional ice hockey major league that operated in North America from 1972 to 1979. It was the first major league to compete with the National Hockey League (NHL) ...

and

East Coast Hockey League The ECHL (formerly the East Coast Hockey League) is a mid-level professional ice hockey league based in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, with teams scattered across the United States and Canada. It is a tier below the American Hockey League (AHL). The E ...

History

In 1992, Art Clarkson obtained the rights to an

(ECHL) franchise for Birmingham and named it after the former

team, the Birmingham Bulls. However, he sold the ECHL team in 1997 and it eventually relocated in 2001. In early 2017, Clarkson began proposing a new Bulls team to begin play due to the increased presence of hockey in the area. Due to arena issues, the team could not play at the

Birmingham–Jefferson Convention Complex The Birmingham–Jefferson Convention Complex (formerly known as Birmingham–Jefferson Civic Center) is a sports, convention and entertainment complex located in Birmingham, Alabama. The Sheraton Birmingham and Westin Birmingham are located on t ...

like the other former teams, but instead settled on the smaller Pelham Civic Center in nearby

, in February 2017. The

(SPHL) announced its approval of the Bulls as an expansion team on April 26, 2017. Longtime ECHL Bulls' player Jamey Hicks was named as the inaugural head coach and director of hockey operations. In their inaugural season, the team finished second-to-last and missed the playoffs. In their second season, the team improved and had the second best regular season record in the league led by the SPHL's most valuable player Josh Harris, goaltender of the year Mavric Parks, and coach of the year Jamey Hicks. Birmingham advanced in the 2019 playoffs to the championships, but were defeated by the defending champion

Huntsville Havoc The Huntsville Havoc are a professional ice hockey team in the Southern Professional Hockey League (SPHL). They play their home games at the Von Braun Center in downtown Huntsville, Alabama. History The team began play in the 2004–05 season ...

. After the season, Art Clarkson stepped down as the managing partner of team and died later that year. The 2019–20 season was curtailed by the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. During the pandemic, head coach Jamey Hicks resigned before the 2020–21 season in order to remain in Canada but was still a consultant for the team. He was replaced by Craig Simchuk.

References

External links

Official website
Ice hockey teams in Alabama Southern Professional Hockey League teams Shelby County, Alabama Ice hockey clubs established in 2017 2017 establishments in Alabama {{US-icehockey-team-stub