Houston earned a 54–15–13 record for 121 points in the standings and the Fred A. īy the start of the 1998–99 season, the Aeros were led by the goalie tandem of Chabot and Fernandez posted a combined 2.35 goals against average, the best average in the league, minor league journeyman Jeff Christian scored a team-leading 45 goals and 109 points (including 88 assists) from former Michigan Wolverines' player Brian Wiseman. Houston won 44 games in 1996–97 and followed that with their first 50-win campaign the next year, losing in the 1998 Western Conference Finals to the Long Beach Ice Dogs. In 1996, Watson hired former Hartford Whalers' player Dave Tippett as his head coach. Some of these signings included Mark Freer, who set the Houston franchise record for career goals, eventual coach Mike Yeo, veteran NHL player Jim Paek, and goaltending duo Frederic Chabot and Manny Fernandez. Independently owned and operated by Chuck Watson without a primary National Hockey League (NHL) affiliate, the franchise spent money on younger players still trying to make a name for themselves and former NHL players at the end of their careers. Despite missing the playoffs in their sophomore campaign, the Aeros spent the back half of the 1990s becoming one of the more dominant teams of the IHL. #WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN DAVE ERICKSON AND TOYOTA PROFESSIONAL#The Aeros posted a winning record in their inaugural season and made the playoffs, while the team repeatedly sold out its home games at The Summit after not having professional hockey in the region for nearly two decades. The team was an immediate success, both on the ice and at the gate. The original color scheme was forest green, navy blue, and a red accents on jerseys. The Aeros were the second IHL team to be named after a WHA franchise, the first being the Phoenix Roadrunners unlike the Roadrunners, who used the same logo as their WHA predecessor, the IHL Aeros used a new logo, a Douglas B-23 Dragon bomber underneath a stylized wordmark. The team's name was a tribute to the original Houston Aeros of the World Hockey Association in the 1970s, who won the Avco World Trophy twice with hockey legend Gordie Howe anchoring the team. The Houston Aeros started out as an expansion franchise in the International Hockey League (IHL) in 1994 with home games at The Summit. While the team's only formal partnership with the Dallas Stars was a partial affiliation agreement during the 2004–05 season, Dallas occasionally sent some of their prospects to the Aeros on individual loans from 1993 to 2005, until the establishment of the Iowa Stars gave Dallas its own primary farm team.Īs of May 18, 2021, Jared Spurgeon, Matt Dumba, and Jonas Brodin are the only players still in the Minnesota Wild system who had once spent time in Houston. Upon joining the AHL for the 2001–02 season, they became the primary affiliate of the one-year-old NHL expansion team, the Minnesota Wild, a partnership they maintained until the franchise's relocation in 2013. In the IHL, the team operated as an independent minor league team from 1994 to 2001, though the team occasionally accepted players on loan from various National Hockey League (NHL) clubs for development. The team played in Houston, Texas, at The Summit (renamed Compaq Center in 1998) from 1994 until 2003 and the Toyota Center from 2003 to 2013. The Houston Aeros were a professional ice hockey team in the International Hockey League (IHL) and the American Hockey League (AHL). Minnesota Sports and Entertainment (86%), For the World Hockey Association team, see Houston Aeros (WHA).
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