Arkansas RiverBlades
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The Arkansas RiverBlades was a short-lived minor-league ice hockey team located in North Little Rock, Arkansas.
The Arkansas RiverBlades was an East Coast Hockey League franchise which played at the newly opened ALLTEL Arena.
The team logo was unveiled in February of 1998 and the Canadian brothers Dave Berryman and Tim Berryman were granted a lease for Alltel Arena in March. The ECHL franchise was granted in May of 1998.
The team was originally named the "Arkansas RazorBlades" and adopted a razorback hog as its mascot. The University of Arkansas objected to the name and symbology and pressed the team to finally agree to a name change. In October of 1998 a contest was held to establish a new name and "RiverBlades" is chosen.
In May of 1999 the team selects the slogan "Greatest Game on Ice". Little Rock's minor league baseball team, the Arkansas Travelers, objects to the slogan which is similar to their long standing "Greatest Game on Dirt" slogan.
The RiverBlades played their home opener on 28 October 1998 after moving the date due to construction delays at ALLTEL Arena. The RiverBlades would compete with the cross-town Arkansas GlacierCats who were in their second season. The two teams played on the same nights in many cases and each developed their own fan following. The next year the GlacierCats would fold, unable to compete with the RiverBlades and their new home arena.
In October of 2001 the ECHL approved the sale of Dave Berryman's 51 percent stake of the team to Equity Broadcasting Corporation which also owned the Arkansas Twisters arena football team.
In the summer of 2002 the Fayetteville Force, a Central Hockey League team out of North Carolina offered to switch franchises with Berryman who turned the offer down.
In early 2003 rumors began to circulate that the RiverBlades would not return for the 2003-2004 season but the company denied the rumors. In June of 2003 Equity Broadcasting ended the lease with Alltel Arena and announced that it would attempt to sell the team.
Adapted from the article Arkansas RiverBlades (http://www.wikinfo.org/wiki.phtml?title=Arkansas_RiverBlades), from Wikinfo, licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.