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Gwinnett Receives Award Of Excellence

June 18, 2008 - ECHL (ECHL) News Release


PRINCETON, N.J. - The ECHL announced that the Gwinnett Gladiators are the recipient of the Award of Excellence for 2007-08.

The Award of Excellence is presented by the league office to organizations that are first-rate, who excel in all categories of sales and marketing, and who distinguish themselves in their community, both on and off the ice.

The Gladiators led the league in walk-up sales and increased their season ticket sales and their group ticket sales while ranking among the league leaders in charitable contributions.

Gwinnett had four crowds of more than 10,000 and raised its average for the third year in a row to 5,656 per game. The Gladiators have had a crowd of 10,000 or more seven times in the last two years and 11 times overall, including four sellouts of 11,355.

ECHL Award of Excellence Winners

Year Team
2007-08 Gwinnett Gladiators
2006-07 Stockton Thunder
2005-06 Alaska Aces
2004-05 Pensacola Ice Pilots
2003-04 Florida Everblades
2002-03 Johnstown Chiefs

ECHL
Celebrating its 20th Anniversary in 2007-08, the ECHL is the Premier 'AA' Hockey League and the third-longest tenured professional hockey league behind only the National Hockey League and the American Hockey League.

ECHL began in 1988-89 with five teams in four states and has grown to be a coast-to-coast league that will play with 24 teams in 16 states and British Columbia in 2008-09.

The league officially changed its name to ECHL on May 19, 2003.

The ECHL has affiliations with 26 of the 30 teams in the NHL in 2007-08, marking the 11th consecutive season that the league has had affiliations with at least 20 teams in the NHL.

There have been 355 former ECHL players who have gone on to play in the NHL after playing in the ECHL, including 99 in the last three seasons. There have been 210 former ECHL players who have played their first game in the NHL in the past seven seasons.

There are 15 coaches in the NHL who have ECHL experience including former Mississippi and current Washington Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau, who is the 2007-08 winner of the NHL Coach of the Year award, and former Wheeling coach Peter Laviolette, who is head coach of the Carolina Hurricanes.

The ECHL is represented for the eighth consecutive year on the National Hockey League championship team in 2008 with Detroit Red Wings forward Aaron Downey.

The ECHL has affiliations with 26 of the 29 teams in the American Hockey League in 2007-08 and for the past 19 years there has been an ECHL player on the Calder Cup champion.

In each of the last two seasons there have been more than 225 players who have played in both the ECHL and the AHL and there were over 800 call-ups involving more than 500 players. In the last five seasons the ECHL has had more call-ups to the AHL than all other professional leagues combined with over 2,000 call-ups involving more than 1,000 players since 2002-03.

Further information on the ECHL is available from its website at ECHL.com.

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