The Vermont Frost Heaves were a professional basketball team in Vermont, United States that last played in the Premier Basketball League, last coached by Joe Salerno. The formation of the team was announced in December, 2005 by founding owner Alexander Wolff, a Cornwall, Vermont resident and writer for Sports Illustrated. The Heaves were originally part of the American Basketball Association from 2006 through 2008. They were the ABA Champions in the 2006–07 and the 2007–2008 seasons, under head coach Will Voigt.
The Heaves started playing in the fall of 2006 at the Auditorium in Barre, Vermont and the Memorial Auditorium in Burlington, Vermont.
The Heaves started off with a 108–100 overtime loss at Quebec City before going on a 5 game win streak with wins over Montreal, Buffalo, Quebec City, and Cape Cod(2). An overtime loss at Strong Island was followed by a seven game win streak ended by Quebec City in Barre, the team's first ever home loss. Attendance was between 900 and 1,650 for the games.
The team ended the regular season 30–6. On March 29, 2007, the Frost Heaves won the ABA Championship, defeating the Texas Tycoons 143–95.
In the 2010 off-season, a group of local fans bought the team, which had been on the verge of collapse, and established a non-profit fan-owned corporation named GO Heaves, Inc. to operate the team. However, on January 26, 2011 (in the midst of the season), GO Heaves incorporated announced that the team was ceasing operations. Their players were subject to a dispersal draft.
Famous quotes containing the words vermont, frost and/or heaves:
“Anything I can say about New Hampshire
Will serve almost as well about Vermont,
Excepting that they differ in their mountains.
The Vermont mountains stretch extended straight;
New Hampshire mountains curl up in a coil.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“They learned to rattle the lock and key
To give whatever might chance to be,
Warning and time to be off in flight:”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
““Popeye, forced as you know to flee the country
One musty gusty evening, by the schemes of his wizened, duplicate father, jealous of the apartment
And all that it contains, myself and spinach
In particular, heaves bolts of loving thunder
At his own astonished becoming....””
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)