History
The Lake Erie Monsters began with the revival of the dormant Utah Grizzlies franchise purchased by an Cleveland ownership group led by Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers NBA basketball team and Quicken Loans on May 16, 2006. The team was relocated to Cleveland to replace the former Cleveland American Hockey League tenant, the Cleveland Barons, who had moved to Massachusetts to compete as the Worcester Sharks following the 2005–06 season. With the Quicken Loans Arena established as the team's home venue the Colorado Avalanche were announced as the franchise's primary NHL affiliate with a five-year agreement on December 17, 2006.
On January 25, 2007, the franchise was announced by Dan Gilbert as the Lake Erie Monsters, referring to Bessie, a creature of local folklore. The name was chosen from researching focus groups around the Cleveland area and the logo incorporated the Geographical connection in the Region with Lake Erie. With the team colors of Wine, Black, White, Yellow and Blue, the Monsters secondary logo was chosen instead to feature on the front jerseys.
Former NHL player, Joe Sacco who had been coaching within the Avalanche's affiliate organizations for the past three-years, was named as the Monsters first head coach and was joined by former Avalanche and NHL defenseman Sylvain Lefebvre as an assistant on May 7, 2007.
With Lake Erie placed to compete in the North Division of the American Hockey League. The Monsters opened their inaugural 2007–08 campaign at home against the Grand Rapids Griffins on October 6, 2007.
On November 11, 2010, it was announced that the Avalanche and Monsters agreed on a multi-year extension to their current agreement. The terms of this extension were not disclosed as per NHL/AHL policy.At the end of the 2010–11 season the Monsters made it into the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. After gaining a 3-1 game lead over the Manitoba Moose they lost in game 7 4-1 and lost the round 3-4.
This market was previously served by:
- Cleveland Indians (1929–1934) IHL*
- Cleveland Falcons (1934–1936) IHL*
- Cleveland Falcons (1936–1937) AHL*
- Cleveland Barons (1937–1972) AHL*
- Cleveland Crusaders (1972–1976) WHA
- Cleveland Barons (NHL) (1976–1978) NHL
- Cleveland Lumberjacks (1992–2001) IHL
- Cleveland Barons (2001–2006) AHL
(*) - same team
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