City: Atlanta, GA

Category: Spectator Sports

Telephone: (404) 875-3800

Description: One of the newest professional sports teams is the National Hockey League’s Atlanta Thrashers. But the team is not the city’s first entry in the NHL. In 1971 Atlanta was awarded an expansion NHL franchise for the Atlanta Flames. With hockey legend Bernie “Boom Boom” Geoffrion as the team’s first coach, they took the ice in 1972. Despite the team’s popularity with the fans, new owners moved the Flames to Calgary, Alberta, after the 1979–80 season. For four seasons, the Atlanta Knights played in the International Hockey League, winning the minor league’s championship, the Turner Cup, in 1994. Thanks in part to the Knights’ success and to Turner Sports, founded by Ted Turner and now a part of AOL Time-Warner Co., the NHL awarded an expansion franchise to Atlanta in 1997. In 2007 the Thrashers reached the NHL’s Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time but were swept in four games in the opening round by the New York Rangers. Home games are played in Philips Arena, and all ticket sales are handled by Ticketmaster. Sports South is the cable television home of the Thrashers, and WCNN (AM 680) is the flagship radio station.