The Indianapolis Ice had a fresh start in the summer of
1989. After spending their first year as an independent, the team announced a
primary affiliation with the Chicago Blackhawks, meaning the Ice would be a
team full of NHL prospects much like the Checkers had been a half-decade
before.
The local fans knew they’d be seeing players on their way to the NHL. Little did they know the season they’d get on the way there.
The 1989-90 Indianapolis Ice will go down as one of the great teams in IHL history, and also one of the great ones in local hockey lore. They went 53-21-8, won the IHL’s West Division championship by a whopping 31 points, and were hardly touched in a playoff run that saw them sweep the Muskegon Lumberjacks and win the Turner Cup – the city’s first hockey championship in seven years.
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| Bruce Cassidy hoists the Turner Cup in 1990. (Indpls. Ice) |
The local fans knew they’d be seeing players on their way to the NHL. Little did they know the season they’d get on the way there.
The 1989-90 Indianapolis Ice will go down as one of the great teams in IHL history, and also one of the great ones in local hockey lore. They went 53-21-8, won the IHL’s West Division championship by a whopping 31 points, and were hardly touched in a playoff run that saw them sweep the Muskegon Lumberjacks and win the Turner Cup – the city’s first hockey championship in seven years.
It was a given this would be a whole new team. The 1988-89
Ice had been an independent, and with no NHL affiliate to feed them players,
put together a squad of veteran scorers and tough guys – in some cases, in the
same package – that evoked memories of the 1970s Philadelphia Flyers. But on
the ice, they hadn’t been successful, winning just 26 games.
