Sporting Events
The arena has hosted NCAA Division 1 college basketball games (including the Mid-Continent Conference men's basketball tournament from 1996–99) in addition to several NHL and NBA exhibition contests. The now-defunct Quad City Thunder basketball team played all their home games at the i wireless Center from 1993 until the Continental Basketball Association folded six years later. Hockey has also been played at the arena since 1995. The first 12 years by the Quad City Mallards of the United Hockey League then two years as the Quad City Flames of the American Hockey League before moving to Abbotsford, British Columbia. After the Flames left, the Quad City Mallards were reincarnated in June 2009, and are still playing at the arena. In 2009, Western Illinois University's club hockey team, the Fighting Leathernecks, became the most recent inhabitants of the arena. They are still playing there even though they are only allowed 4 games per season at the venue.
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Famous quotes containing the words sporting and/or events:
“I once heard of a murderer who propped his two victims up against a chess board in sporting attitudes and was able to get as far as Seattle before his crime was discovered.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“When the course of events shall have removed you to distant scenes of action where laurels not nurtured with the blood of my country may be gathered, I shall urge sincere prayers for your obtaining every honor and preferment which may gladden the heart of a soldier.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)