History
The Panthers were created by Henry Brabham, who was also an intricate part of the creation of the ECHL itself. Erie was chosen as a location due to the success of the former Erie Golden Blades. The Panthers enjoyed success earlier on in their existence with five straight playoff appearances. Though never winning the league championship, the team was named the regular season champs for the 1989–90 season. The next three years would bring about the end of the Panthers franchise with three straight losing seasons.
In 1996 the team would be moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana and renamed te Baton Rouge Kingfish. There the team's struggles continued, making the playoffs in only one of seven seasons in Baton Rouge. In 2004 the franchise again relocated, this time moving 4,400 miles northwest to Victoria, British Columbia. The franchise continued operation there as the Victoria Salmon Kings, garnering a Division Championship in the 2007–08 season.
The franchise finally ceased operations following the 2010–11 ECHL season, making way for the WHL's Victoria Royals. This marked the end of a 23-year franchise run, the longest in the league behind the Wheeling Nailers (Carolina Thunderbirds) and the Greenville Road Warriors (Johnstown Chiefs), both of which continue to operate.
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“It’s not the sentiments of men which make history but their actions.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
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“Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed; for or against, we must take sides. And the history of the future will differ according to the decision which we make.”
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