The Federal Hockey League (FHL), a professional independent minor league created in 2009, features teams in the Midwest, Southern, and Northeastern United States that compete in small to medium-sized facilities.
The league’s roster is mostly made up of former NCAA Division II and III varsity hockey players. The Danbury Hat Tricks won the league championship last season, hailing from a city with its own brand of minor league hockey mythology, owed in large part to the Danbury Trashers, a former United Hockey League (UHL) team.
Despite league officials’ promise to increase the number of teams in the coming years, fans in a semi-rural Delaware village are mourning the loss of their squad.
The Delaware Thunder, which debuted in 2019, spent three seasons at the Centre Ice Arena in Harrington.
The Centre, as it is commonly known, is a 700-seat building located on the Delaware State Fairgrounds.
Throughout the franchise’s history, the Centre was frequently at capacity for home games. Loyal supporters from the surrounding rural areas went to the games to experience the league’s rough style of play in an intimate atmosphere.
Everything from the canned beer to the plastic souvenir Viking helmets in the crowd set the tone for a fun-filled evening.
When I went to a game in March 2023, the seats were full, and the standing-room spaces beside the glass were at least two deep.
The presence of this many spectators alone demonstrates the club’s capacity to gather a crowd, a code that many minor league hockey clubs have yet to crack.
Fans, mostly dressed in Carhartt brand work attire, exchanged lighthearted jabs with the tiny number of Port Huron Prowlers fans who wandered the arena.
Despite the Thunder’s poor record and last-place standing, raucous fans, young and old, cheered on every shot, save, breakaway, and check.
When two opposing players got into a skirmish, which was soon broken up by referees, the audience erupted in cheers. As I departed,
