Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

has seen slow but steady growth with

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 ...

since the late 1990s. Since the arrival of the

Nashville Predators The Nashville Predators (commonly referred to as the Preds) are a professional ice hockey team based in Nashville, Tennessee. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference, and ha ...

, the sport has grown in the Volunteer State far faster than most other

southern states Southern States may refer to: *The independent states of the Southern hemisphere United States * Southern United States, or the American South * Southern States Cooperative, an American farmer-owned agricultural supply cooperative * Southern Stat ...

History

Beginning in the mid 60s, Tennessee was the target for expansion with minor professional ice hockey teams. The three largest cities in the state, Knoxville, Memphis and

Nashville Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...

all received teams during this time. There was some mild success on the ice but none of the teams were able to capture the public interest and all were gone within a decade. Other then an abortive attempt in the early 1980s, the state remained without an established team for over 15 years. A second concerted effort brought the sport back to the Volunteer State in the form of the

Knoxville Cherokees The Knoxville Cherokees were an East Coast Hockey League (ECHL) team based in Knoxville, Tennessee. History The franchise was formed in 1988 along with the ECHL. The team moved to Florence, South Carolina in 1997 and was renamed the Pee Dee Prid ...

. The team had four winning seasons in nine years and never made it past the first round of the playoffs, however, the Cherokees were still able to bring in crowds of increasing size. By 1997 the average attendance had risen from about 2,100 per game to nearly 3,500 and was continuing to trend upwards. Though the team moved to

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

in 1997, their

box office A box office or ticket office is a place where ticket (admission), tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through a hole in a wall or window, or at a Wicket gate, wicke ...

success helped to bring two other teams to the state. The Memphis RiverKings arrived with great fanfare in 1992, drawing crowds of more than 5,000 for their first two years. Afterwards, the attendance figures steadily declined over time but remained strong enough for the team to stick around for 15 years. In that time, Memphis was a pair of league championships before moving just across the border to Southaven, Mississippi. In 1989, the Nashville Knights had a strong start just like the RiverKings, however, their attendance declined at a much quicker rate. The team survived for seven seasons before relocating to

. Not willing to give up on the market, a CHL team began in 1996. The Nashville Ice Flyers / Nighthawks saw modest attendance figures for their two years of existence but the team was playing on borrowed time as plans to begin the

had kicked off in early 1997. Upon their arrival, the Predators were one of several new teams in the south, along with the

Carolina Hurricanes The Carolina Hurricanes (colloquially known as the Canes) are a professional ice hockey team based in Raleigh, North Carolina. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference, ...

Florida Panthers The Florida Panthers are a professional ice hockey team based in the Miami metropolitan area. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division (NHL), Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference (NHL), Eastern ...

, Dallas Stars and

Tampa Bay Lightning The Tampa Bay Lightning (colloquially known as the Bolts) are a professional ice hockey team based in Tampa, Florida. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. They play th ...

. However, the team was unable to form any rivalry with their southern counterparts as the team was placed in a division with Chicago, Detroit and St. Louis. The team also failed to make the postseason for the first five years and, while that wasn't entirely unexpected, it did nothing to help the growth of the sport in the region. Nashville made its first postseason appearance in 2004 but then saw any gains they had made be washed away by the

NHL lockout The NHL lockout may refer to any of the four labour actions in the history of the National Hockey League: * The 1992 NHL strike, which postponed 30 games of the 1991–92 season * The 1994–95 NHL lockout, which cancelled many of the games of ...

. Nashville began to see much greater success after 2005 and finished with a winning record for seven consecutive seasons. After the arrival of

P. K. Subban Pernell-Karl Sylvester Subban ( ; born May 13, 1989) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey defenceman. Between 2009 and 2022, he played 13 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) with the Montreal Canadiens, Nashville Predators, a ...

in 2016, Nashville made its first trip to the

Stanley Cup Finals The Stanley Cup Finals in ice hockey (also known as the Stanley Cup Final among various media, french: Finale de la Coupe Stanley) is the National Hockey League's (NHL) championship series to determine the winner of the Stanley Cup, North America ...

and followed that up by winning the Presidents' Trophy the next season. Aside from his prowess on the ice, Subban was also important for be the first

black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...

leader for the franchise and sell itself to the sizable minority community in the state. Throughout its history, Tennessee had never been home to a single college ice hockey program but that changed in 2023.

Tennessee State Tennessee State University (Tennessee State, Tenn State, or TSU) is a public historically black land-grant university in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1912, it is the only state-funded historically black university in Tennesse ...

announced that it was starting a club ice hockey team in 2024 and would hope to promote it to varsity status in the near future. While those plans in an of themselves weren't unique, Tennessee State is a

HBCU Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving the African-American community. Mo ...

and would be the first of its kind in the nation to ice a team. Additionally, Tennessee State would be just the second college in the south to support a varsity program if their plans come to fruition, with the only other previous team being Alabama–Huntsville.

Teams

Professional

Active

Inactive

Junior

Inactive

† Relocated from elsewhere.

Timeline

DateFormat = mm/dd/yyyy ImageSize = width:1500 height:auto barincrement:20 Period = from:01/01/1960 till:07/01/2024 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal PlotArea = right:30 left:0 bottom:50 top:5 Colors = id:act value:rgb(0.5,0.8,0.5) legend:active id:out value:rgb(0.8,0.5,0.5) legend:out id:inact value:rgb(0.5,0.8,0.8) legend:inactive id:line value:black id:bg value:white PlotData= width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s bar:1 color:act from:07/01/1961 till:06/01/1968 text:

Knoxville Knights Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state's ...

(1961–1968) bar:2 color:act from:07/01/1962 till:06/01/1971 text:

Nashville Dixie Flyers The Nashville Dixie Flyers were a professional minor league ice hockey team in Nashville, Tennessee. They played in the Eastern Hockey League from 1962 until the franchise folded in 1971. Their home games were held at the Nashville Municipal Audit ...

(1962–1971) bar:3 color:out from:07/01/1963 till:06/01/1964 text: bar:3 color:act from:07/01/1964 till:06/01/1967 text: Memphis Wings (1964–1967) bar:3 color:out from:07/01/1967 till:06/01/1982 text: bar:4 color:act from:07/01/1967 till:06/01/1969 text:

Memphis South Stars The Memphis South Stars were a minor professional ice hockey team in Memphis, Tennessee, that replaced the Memphis Wings in the city. They played in the Central Professional Hockey League for two seasons ( 1967–68 and 1968–69) and were a far ...

(1967–1969) bar:4 color:out from:07/01/1969 till:06/01/1970 text: bar:5 color:act from:07/01/1981 till:06/01/1983 text: Nashville South Stars (1981–1983) bar:5 color:out from:07/01/1983 till:06/01/2003 text: bar:5 color:out from:07/01/2005 till:end text: bar:6 color:act from:07/01/1988 till:06/01/1997 text:

(1988–1997) bar:6 color:out from:07/01/1997 till:06/01/2005 text: bar:7 color:act from:07/01/1989 till:06/01/1996 text: Nashville Knights (1989–1996) bar:7 color:out from:07/01/1996 till:06/01/2008 text: bar:8 color:act from:07/01/1992 till:06/01/2007 text: Memphis RiverKings (1992–2007) bar:8 color:out from:07/01/2007 till:06/01/2018 text: bar:9 color:act from:07/01/1996 till:06/01/1998 text: Nashville Ice Flyers / Nighthawks (1996–1998) bar:10 color:act from:07/01/1998 till:end text:

(1998–Present) bar:11 color:out from:07/01/1995 till:06/01/1999 text: bar:11 color:act from:07/01/1999 till:06/01/2002 text:

Knoxville Speed The Knoxville Speed was a Minor league, minor professional ice hockey team in the United Hockey League (UHL) based in Knoxville, Tennessee with home games at the James White Civic Coliseum. They were formerly the Madison Monsters, before team owne ...

(1999–2002) bar:12 color:act from:07/01/2002 till:end text:

Knoxville Ice Bears 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 the Knoxville Civic Coliseum in Knoxville, Tennessee. The Ice Bears have made the playoffs ...

(2002–Present) bar:13 color:act from:07/01/2014 till:06/01/2018 text:

Nashville Junior Predators The Nashville Junior Predators were a USA Hockey-sanctioned Tier III ice hockey team in the North American 3 Hockey League (NA3HL). The team played their home games at Ford Ice Center in Antioch, Tennessee, after spending their first two seasons ...

(2014–2018) ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:5 start:01/01/1965

Players

Due in no small part to the dearth of junior hockey in the state, Tennessee has produced very few home grown players. However, the state has seen an increase in the number of players with Tennessee falling in the middle third in the nation with just under 5,000 residents registered with

USA Hockey USA Hockey is the national ice hockey organization in the United States. It is recognized by the International Olympic Committee and the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee as the Sport governing body, governing body for organized ice ...

in 2022. By percentage, that accounts for approximately 0.07% of the population, or about 1 in every 1,400 people.

Notable players by city

Memphis

Jon Awe Jon Awe (born April 30, 1980) is an American former professional ice hockey defenseman who played in the American Hockey League (AHL). Playing career The 6-foot-4, 240-pound native of Memphis, Tenn., played junior hockey with the South Suburb ...

Brentwood

Blake Geoffrion Blake Daniel Geoffrion (born February 3, 1988) is an American former professional ice hockey player. He last played with the Montreal Canadiens of the National Hockey League. He was a second round selection of the Nashville Predators, 56th overal ...

^† † relocated from elsewhere.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ice hockey in Tennessee Ice hockey in Tennessee