After a nine-month hiatus, it’s back to the ice for the Pensacola Ice Flyers and four other Southern Professional Hockey League clubs, who are playing a truncated season with fewer teams and fewer games thanks to the coronavirus.
The geographically southernmost teams – Pensacola, the Birmingham Bulls, Huntsville Havoc, Knoxville Ice Bears, and the Macon Mayhem – are playing a 42-game season. Ice Flyers head coach Rod Aldoff says with only one other minor league in operation, the ECHL, there’s been a bumper crop of talent to recruit.
“Obviously, when the league announced the five teams were dropping out, obviously a lot of teams became available from other teams,” said Aldoff. “So our goal was to go after a few guys that we thought would fit well with our team and we did, and they’re here.”