Phanatic Hockey Editor
Earlier this week, the prospective ECHL franchise intended to relocate from Salt Lake City to the Delaware Valley for the 2026-27 season finally gained a name.
On Tuesday, in a ceremony within the club's home located smack in the middle of all the action in Jersey's capital, the Trenton IronHawks were born.
"Today marks an important milestone as we officially announce our franchise name, the Trenton IronHawks, and prepare to bring a new era of professional ECHL hockey to Trenton," said new team president Bob Ohrablio to a gathered media throng which included city mayor Reed Gusciora and Mercer County Executive Dan Benson. "The hawk symbolizes strength and spirit, while the iron industry and its workers remain vital to Trenton's economy through their grit and determination."
The sale was officially announced in early September, after the ECHL Board of Governors signed off on the transaction.
The ECHL team in Trenton will be called the Trenton IronHawks pic.twitter.com/h23vFKOAkV
— Kyle Franko (@kj_franko) January 13, 2026
There will be no swap of affiliations for the new Trenton franchise despite its proximity to Philadelphia. It is expected to be the second-level minor team attached to the Colorado Avalanche. The Reading Royals are expected to keep its agreement current with the Philadelphia Flyers.
Minor league hockey last graced the CURE Insurance Arena in 2013 -- the last season the NHL decided to try and implode and whose labor strife delayed the season until late January -- when the Trenton Devils played there during the last of their 6-season sojourn. Prior to that, the club was known as the Trenton Titans who were linked primarily to the Philadelphia Phantoms of the American Hockey League and Flyers. Secondary affiliations once hooked the double-A level franchise to the Islanders and Bridgeport Sound Tigers.
The original iteration of the Titans played from 1999 to 2007 in Trenton, missing out on the postseason only once in eight years and winning the Kelly Cup in 2005 in a 6-game triumph over the Florida Everblades. Head coach of that champion was Middletown, NJ native Mike Haviland, who parlayed that and a previous league title in Atlantic City into a long string of coaching gigs from Division 1 NCAA to the NHL.
The initial franchise rebrand arrived for the 2007-08 season with an affiliation switch north to the New Jersey Devils, but then reverted back to the Titans moniker in 2011, This club made the postseason just once in four years, and not in the two years thereafter when the roster was a grab-bag of never-weres attached to the Flyers and Devils as well as untethered free agents.
The only name of consequence on the Titans' final roster was Scott Wedgewood, who made the leap to Albany in the AHL that season and eventually cracked an NHL roster with the Devils in 2015 before finally sticking to the big league in 2020 with New Jersey. Wedgewood is currently part of the Colorado Avalanche's blistering start to the 2025-26 campaign.
The cancelled 2004-05 NHL season as well as the four-month labor stalemate begun in September 2012 afforded an excellent opportunity to get a feel for the teams and the league itself. However, hockey fans and even those casuals and families to whom ECHL franchises cater, clearly felt different.
It is clearly a hard sell for a low-level minor-league franchise to gain any kind of semi-permanent foothold in a region where there are major-league options within a 2-hour jaunt. Yet, Delaware-based owners Pro Hockey Partners, LLC are taking the risk.
According to HockeyDB, attendance in Trenton was strong early on but cratered thereafter, with average nightly attendance peaking in the first season of 1999-2000 at almost 7,100 per night and slipping to 3,515 per game eight years later. Same thing for the second stage, with a high of 3,315 per game coming in 2007-08 and bottoming at 2,390 four seasons later. Paradoxically, attendance rose from just over 3,000 per game in 2011-12 to 3,360 in that final turn on the ice.
CURE Insurance Arena capacity, by the way, is still listed at just a hair over 7,600 seats for hockey.
The franchise which is relocating, the Utah Grizzlies, are the spiritual brothers with a previous franchise located in SLC which bore the same name. The original Grizz were born as a rebrand from the highly-successful CHL Salt Lake Golden Eagles -- an affiliate of the Calgary Flames whose most famous alumnus might be Theo Fleury -- and played in the now-defunct International Hockey League from 1995 to 2001.
When the IHL folded after that season, the club was one of a small handful given new life in the AHL. While only lasting four years as a top-flight minor-league team, they were dropped back to the ECHL in 2005 and stayed there ever since. The Norfolk Admirals did the same thing, sort of. After being successful enough and with a consistently large enough fan base in the ECHL to warrant a promotion, the club arose to the AHL in 2000 and stayed until 2015 before its dissolution. The second generation Norfolk team that roams the ECHL today was born from the ashes of the old Bakersfield Condors.
Over the last several seasons calling the Maverik Center in West Valley City home, the Grizzlies average attendance was around half of the 12,600-seat venue. But with the relocation of the nomadic Arizona Coyotes to Utah's largest city three years ago, there clearly wasn't enough room in town for both minor and major hockey.
What remains to be seen is whether this separation would bring to an end an almost unbroken chain of top-level minor hockey in the city stretching back more than five decades, to the original Golden Eagles in the original Western Hockey League.
CURE Insurance Arena, by the way, is in a not-so-great part of the city, accessed through other not-so-great parts of the city. It is not really close to anything approximating other family-friendly entertainment in the historic locale.
Funny how the revitalization always packaged with and promised by developers when a new venue is constructed in a depressed area never really arrives.
My first job in hockey was unpaid, as a member of the off-ice stats crew in Reading. We learned from the crack staff in Trenton and we, in turn, taught the newbies in Atlantic City.
The postgames became a tight-knit circle of stats crew, team staff, players and game officials where nothing was off limits and nothing was repeatable in public. Whether fan or worker, you can get a real sense of what life is like on the margins. If players last long enough, they bond with the fans and become part of the community. The lucky few end up putting down roots.
I recall having a seat in the press box at Trenton during the winter of 2013, when a team higher-up called the team's nominal beat writer into the hall between periods for a hush-hush conversation that served as silent confirmation that it would be the curtain dropper for the second version of the Titans. No fanfare for the open secret.
By then, the only selling point was afternoon games aplenty, particularly on non-school winter holidays. Fans -- many of them with children or young adults in tow -- showed up early but left as soon as they could, day or night.
If Trenton couldn't really work in its original formation with bitter rivals Reading and Atlantic City nearby along with favorable scheduling that featured these clubs on the regular, how could it survive and thrive now? That may be a loaded question.
The Boardwalk Bullies drew flies and the disembodied voice of Bert Parks despite winning clubs and a Kelly Cup title because historic old Boardwalk Hall was apparently less of a a selling point than Grant's Tomb. The Royals somehow keep hanging on despite Sovereign Center roughly one-third to two-thirds full at best 25 years on and affiliations that switched from the Kings to the Capitals to the Flyers.
It seems to be part and parcel of the process at this level to shuffle the deck every couple years, try one location then cut-and-run when the going gets tough. It's better than a bust-out. The ECHL made its bones in the late 90s and early 2000s by getting ahead of the NHL's Sun Belt expansion by setting up shop in a more than a dozen southerly locations. Only a precious few remain. They also failed in mid-size cities that traditionally welcomed minor hockey while also trying and failing and trying again in other markets like Dayton, Toledo, Indianapolis, Atlanta and Wichita.
"The arrival of the Trenton IronHawks is an exciting moment for our city," Gusciora said at the introductory conference. This team brings new energy to the CURE Insurance Arena and creates opportunities for residents, visitors and local businesses alike."
It is unknown at this point when the Trenton club's schedule for next season will be announced but the club already has a website in place where all team-related news will land.
Best anyone can say at this point is, go while you have the time. Enjoy it while it lasts.
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