The Austin Ice Bats were a professional minor-league ice hockey team based in Austin, Texas, United States. They played in Austin from 1996 to 2008. Affiliated with the Central Hockey League, the team was named in honor of the Mexican Free-tailed Bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) which nest under the Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge in the city. Their affiliates were the NHL's Minnesota Wild, the AHL's Houston Aeros, and the ECHL's Texas Wildcatters. The team's last head coach was former NHL player Brent Hughes.
Famous quotes containing the words austin, ice and/or bats:
“if you ever, ever, dare
To stop a grizzly bear,
You will never meet another grizzly bear.”
—Mary Austin (1868–1934)
“I also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond, my great bed-fellow in that part of Concord, as if it were restless in its bed and would fain turn over, were troubled with flatulency and bad dreams; or I was waked by the cracking of the ground by the frost, as if some one had driven a team against my door, and in the morning would find a crack in the earth a quarter of a mile long and a third of an inch wide.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.”
—Sylvia Plath (1932–1963)