Talk:United Hockey League

message: I am making tables for the Champions of particular leagues and I have a question.  Is it ok to put a championship table for the Rockford IceHogs that includes the championships that the Thunder Bay Senators and the Thunder Bay Thunder Cats won.  It shows under defunct teams that all three of these teams are the same team just that they moved around or renamed their team?  Thank you.  John R G 18:12, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not generally the case for minor league teams, no.  The Peoria Rivermen page doesn't display the Springfield Indians Calder Cups, for one.  Ravenswing 21:07, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Table of champions

message: The Rockford Icehogs are not actually moving to the AHL, rather, the Rockford MetroCentre will purchase the rights to the name and logo, and transfer them to the previously defunct Cincinnati AHL team, which the MetroCentre is purchasing. How should this be written on the front page? Bigsnake 19 23:49, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably just as gone defunct.    Ravenswing  13:37, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

text: The article Rockford to join AHL in 2007-08, gives more details that might be helpful.--Ando por Fe 23:29, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rockford Icehogs 

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thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Uhlnew.jpg

message: Of the 199 players who suited up for UHL Eastern Division teams last season, exactly ten of those had played in so much as a single NHL game, and only three had played in more than ten NHL games.  (No doubt the percentages hold true in the Western Division as well, but there are only so many hockeydb.com entries my eyes will take)  Five percent does not constitute "Many of the current IHL players have ... National Hockey League ... experience" under any circumstances whatsoever.  I strongly suggest that any other speculative assertions come with verified sources to avoid their swift removal.    Ravenswing  20:54, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alleged "National Hockey League" experience. 

message: Instead of "(2007-)" maybe we should put something like "(current)". To me, it sounds better, looks better, and makes more sense. Anyone agree/disagree? BsroiaadnTalk 18:04, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How about just make it "International Hockey League" and have this...
 Salisbury Steak (complaint dept. - contribs) 02:36, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I disagree.  If anything, the IHL that shouldn't have dates is the 1945-1996 version, which lasted a great deal longer and had a great deal more prominence than the rebranded UHL will likely have.    Ravenswing  12:40, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  (2007-) 

message: Out of curiosity, why was there remove my most recent edit?  According to the IHL website, they have not only changed the league name, but now award the old IHL trophies.  The link I provided discusses states "The combination of the old and new league will leave open the possibility of naming other awards after people who have made a significant impact in the International Hockey League" and it appears the league it trying to combine the old and new league (hense term merge).  If what I wrote was confusing, somewhat inaccurate, poorly strcutreed, etc. that is fine.  But I am wondering why there was a flat out removal.  Nothing was un-true and a cite was placed on the mereger talks and trophy absorbtion.  I am not trying to be nasty (sorry it comes across this way), but I am curious as to why there was a flat out removed merger material that has not only been cited, but produced by the leauge itself?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by RonSigPi (talk • contribs) 19:05, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How can they "merge" with something that no longer exists? They bought a name. That's all. In particular, your  hypothesis that "it appears the league is attempting to merge with the IHL" has no place in the article. Write facts, not your thoughts on those facts. ccwaters 19:53, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Again, "it appears the league is attempting to merge with the IHL" is your own extrapolation of the situation. The rest of your edit seemed to be a continuation of the same thought. Don't be confused by the language of a press release. ccwaters 13:06, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

text: * It really is.  Yes, the league's management has gone through a surprisingly strident effort to rewrite history, but despite their unsupported claims, the facts remain.   Ravenswing  18:36, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger betweem IHL (1945-2007) and IHL (2007-) 

message: The Fort Wayne Komets set the all time North American home win streak on March 28, 2008 with 23 against the Kalamazoo Wings.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.245.201.188 (talk) 03:25, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Record 

message: Given the lack of official rankings, as there is in baseball, and that there is some disagreement, it may be best to avoid mentioning the level at all.  I realize that makes it hard to properly contextualize the level of play, but we might have to resort to using more words rather than trying to encapsulate the intricacies as just "low-mid-high".
Note the ambiguity that the phrasing quoted above ("a low-level minor league") causes: the AHL, for example, is a mid-level hockey league but a high-level (highest, actually) minor league.  The current wording leaves out "minor" but I think that might be a good replacement for "low-level".  Something like: "The International Hockey League is a minor-league professional ice hockey league...".  The details of where it falls relative to the AHL and other minor leagues can be clarified later in the article.
I hope this helps clarify the dispute.
-- Powers T 15:28, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Third opinion

message: To correct my comment in the last edit summary, of course Fort Wayne is in north Indiana. Boy, I feel stupid on that one, but my point still stands. -- SonicAD (talk) 18:33, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you are missing the point, the old IHL does not need to be gone for the CoHL to have been replacing it. It just has to be less there than it was before. The IHL used to be hugely filled with teams from Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin etc. and they were disappearing when the CoHL was beginning. I will find an article to back it up, but the original comish did say they were starting the league to serve the markets that the IHL had been leaving behind. (ie the smaller communities) -DJSasso (talk) 18:58, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Not a problem; I'll pull out my old saved THNs.  The Colonial League positioned itself that way from the start.  By the time it was founded, the old IHL was down to three cities of its small-market Great Lakes roots, and the next season the 'Jacks relocated to Cleveland.  The IHL's intentions of going upmarket were loudly trumpeted.    Ravenswing  05:39, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fort Wayne 

message: Two issues with the regurgitation of this fallacy.  First, not a single one of the new references are independent; they all come from the league or the league's teams, and the purported new "independent" source has "Press Release From The Quad City Mallards" across the top.
Secondly, it's just plain wrong: hockey does not have any such classification system.  The NHL hasn't imposed one.  The Hockey Hall of Fame hasn't imposed one.  The IIHF hasn't imposed one.  There's no such umbrella organization in hockey governing the minor leagues as Minor League Baseball.  This is a whole-cloth invention of the ECHL marketing department which the UHL/IHL demonstrably took up.   Ravenswing  07:07, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm the King of Upper Crosschecklandia and my declaration of such has just as much authority as the IHL. ccwaters (talk) 17:20, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

text: A league or team press release is not an independent source, as is required.  I can see by your contribution list that you're an inexperienced editor and may not be familiar with WP:V and WP:RS; perhaps you should review them before continuing with this discussion.  As far as the fact that no league identifying structure exists, it's quite pertinent; I freely concede that the ECHL and the IHL describe themselves as being "AA," but that doesn't make it so, any more than me describing myself as being a former pro hockey goalie makes me one.  As far as the "low" vs. "mid" level discussion, there've been dozens of cites going back years describing the CoHL/UHL/IHL as "low" level, and that's the case; the ECHL is the mid-level league here.  As I said in the discussion above last year, "it's obvious that the concept ticks off the UHL/IHL fans who want to believe that the league is a major player in the minors, but their opinion doesn't trump the numerous cited reliable sources to the contrary."   Ravenswing  18:33, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

text: We have repeatingly asked you to supply Reliable third party sources to support this AA+ claim. Its a fundamental wikipedia requirement. There's really nothing to discuss until you do. ccwaters (talk) 22:21, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

text: The problem with what you added was that none of them are from governing bodies that classify the skill level of leagues like USA Hockey. The problem you are going to run into with this is that USA Hockey specifically does not rank pro leagues other than to declare them pro or semi-pro. The only other governing bodies that might do such are the IIHF, NCAA, or NHL. What a news article calls them is not all that relevant as they are just using the marketing that the league uses. -22:39, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

text: Terrific; upon what measurements do you rely to make this assertion? If we were to accept the premise that the AHL calling up 20-someodd IHL players a season as significant, then that your average AHL team makes more than that many callups from the ECHL a year would be far more so.  Of course, WP:SYN requires that we draw no such conclusions.  We can only go with fact, and the fact remains that no letter-grading structure for hockey exists.  Your implied question is how do we figure out the letter grade of a hockey league without one?  The answer is surprisingly simple: we don't.   Ravenswing  08:57, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

text: The point is that there is no letter grade system set up for hockey leagues. There is a regulated letter system for baseball which is where you are getting your two steps away from the big league idea. However hockey does not work like that. Sure you can make an arguement that some players have been called up to the AHL from the league but many more have been called up from the ECHL which means the ECHL is a higher level league than the IHL. Some ECHL teams even have minor affiliates with IHL teams. How can an IHL team be on the same level of the ECHL if the ECHL uses some teams in the IHL as a farm team? The arguments you make actually work against saying the IHL is as good a league as you claim. Salary cap doesn't even enter into it. It just means that the league has agree to pay more for their players as a whole.-DJSasso (talk) 12:13, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

text: And, as far as references go, I came up with quite a few more supporting "low" level than "mid" level, and none of them league or team press releases, which was likewise the case two years ago.  Once again, I urge you to read some of the policy and guideline links supplied to you.  Our task here at Wikipedia is not to believe something and then try to dig for anything that might support your pre-determined conclusion, only to flip your position - such as claiming that AHL teams calling up IHL players is significant until it was pointed out that many more ECHL players are called up - if new, inconvenient facts show up.  It's to post the facts, regardless as to whether we like the results.  You persist in claiming that there's a letter-grade system for minor league hockey, and that the hockey world views the IHL on a tier with the ECHL.  Provably, neither is the case, nor does wishful thinking make it so.    Ravenswing  14:03, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

text: What exactly is this "current direction" of the league you keep mentioning? ccwaters (talk) 14:32, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

text: It would help if you paid attention, Braddaman.  After your previous complaint about dead links, I recovered URLs from the Internet Archive for some and came up with several more; that was only three days ago, and since you took the trouble to revert the edit, I presumed you actually looked at it first.  Djsasso just reverted to the beginning of the dispute, which will change when the lock is removed.  That being said, the "current direction" you claim is unsourced (and probably unsourceable) supposition.  Wikipedia's job is not to be a cheerleader for the IHL in any attempt to upgrade its image.   Ravenswing  17:59, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

text: The eventual article will not necessarily be my 10/04 edit; that's to be determined.  As far as your two references, one doesn't mention "mid-level" at all and the second directly contradicts your premise.  To quote: "Mullen said he has been in contact with, and has had interest from teams at five different levels of hockey -- the AAA American Hockey League, the AA East Coast, International and Central hockey leagues and the junior United States Hockey League."  Plainly that suggests that the IHL is a lower level than the ECHL, which is pretty much what everyone other than you has been saying all along.    Ravenswing  09:26, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  League level debate continued... 

message: :The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 
The result of the move request was: page not moved Arbitrarily0 (talk) 15:20, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: International Hockey League (2007–) → International Hockey League (2007–2010) —
The CHL/IHL merger looks like a done deal with the CHL announcing the new Conference Alignment and other important details. I think it is about time to make the move. --ilamb94 (talk) 23:28, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

text: Oppose: The IHL's website doesn't seem to think so.  The original press release in June had language like "We plan to play under the Central Hockey League, CHL, moniker, with the identity of the IHL being maintained through various aspects that will be announced in the near future" and "The 2010-2011 season will mark the 60th year of professional hockey for the International Hockey League, which was comprised last season of seven Midwestern teams in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois" (however much it pisses me off that they're claiming the original IHL's history as belonging to them).  Its most recent press release this past Thursday  has the following: "The Komets will continue to be a member of the International Hockey League and participate in the Central Hockey League under the CHL moniker in the Northern Conference. The circuit will consist of 13 CHL teams and five IHL teams for an 18-team coalition."  Another post-merger press release has "The IHL is still in discussions which would bring at least one additional team into the League for the 2010-2011 season" for language.  It may be doubletalk, but I wouldn't close down a league's article while the league claims to continue to be in operation.   Ravenswing  03:37, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Oppose for now What a complete mess! (The UHL-IHL claiming original IHL history is upsetting to many hardcore hockey fans btw.) The IHL (press release from today you noted) and the Komets are pretty much the only ones still saying/acting like the IHL exists. Most of the other teams news feeds follow the CHL newsfeed and some like QC don't even have the IHL logo. If you took someone who doesn't follow hockey and asked what league they belong to- after a quick glance of the teams's sites the person would say CHL. Bhockey10 (talk) 04:21, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

text: I see no rush. There is no reason we can't still wait till the beginning of the season for things to be a bit clearer. We don't need to jump on it immediately. -DJSasso (talk) 14:39, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

text: Oppose, let's wait until those folks figure it out. GoodDay (talk) 15:50, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

text: Comment, please explain to me in what way is the International Hockey League still in operation? Please remember that the only team that says that it is an coalition is the Fort Wayne Komets and they have opposed this merger. The CHL website lists all the old IFL teams and even has news from those teams on their news feed. --ilamb94 (talk) 01:23, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

text: *Reply: Because the league claims it is.  We're not in the business of imposing our own judgment on events.  We're in the business of reporting verifiable facts.  As long as the IHL continues to maintain an office, a website, periodic updates and a corporate existence, that's all she wrote.   Ravenswing  02:13, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

text: The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move.  Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
===Part III===
Finally it appears the IHL (2007-) is about as alive as the original IHL. There's not even an IHL website anymore. It all looks like the IHL merging into the CHL. In the previous discussion above, the only thing that kept us from moving the article to International Hockey League (2007–2010) was a few days into the discussion Ravenswing pointed out the IHL through its website still claims they are independent despite all of their teams playing in the CHL (contrasting teams' websites and CHL websites and info that all made it appear to be a merger). Now there's no website or any evidence the IHL still exists. Bhockey10 (talk) 06:53, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

text: Also looking at the CHL page the IHL logo(s) and links are now removed from the CHL website. Bhockey10 (talk) 06:55, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  The old IHL website redirects to the CHL site now.  I still don't think merging the pages is the way to go - among other things, it isn't our practice - but changing the name of this page is plainly a good idea.  Truth be told, the name should be changed back to United Hockey League, the name of the loop for most of its existence.   Ravenswing  07:27, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't think we should merge pages just rename at the least to International Hockey League (2007–2010). Does Wikiproject ice hockey or wikipedia in general have any precedent for a situation like this: The league used the UHL for the longest amount of time the league existed, right? Bhockey10 (talk) 08:03, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we generally leave it named as what it was last...but since there were so many International Hockey League's it might be better to call it the United Hockey League to avoid the bracketed disambiguators. -DJSasso (talk) 11:25, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

text:  The team went by Colonial for six years, United for ten, International for three.    Ravenswing  17:40, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Final article destination cont.

message: Finally it appears the IHL (2007-) is about as alive as the original IHL. There's not even an IHL website anymore. It all looks like the IHL merging into the CHL. In the previous discussion above, the only thing that kept us from moving the article to International Hockey League (2007–2010) was a few days into the discussion Ravenswing pointed out the IHL through its website still claims they are independent despite all of their teams playing in the CHL (contrasting teams' websites and CHL websites and info that all made it appear to be a merger). Now there's no website or any evidence the IHL still exists. Bhockey10 (talk) 06:53, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Also looking at the CHL page the IHL logo(s) and links are now removed from the CHL website. Bhockey10 (talk) 06:55, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  The old IHL website redirects to the CHL site now.  I still don't think merging the pages is the way to go - among other things, it isn't our practice - but changing the name of this page is plainly a good idea.  Truth be told, the name should be changed back to United Hockey League, the name of the loop for most of its existence.   Ravenswing  07:27, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't think we should merge pages just rename at the least to International Hockey League (2007–2010). Does Wikiproject ice hockey or wikipedia in general have any precedent for a situation like this: The league used the UHL for the longest amount of time the league existed, right? Bhockey10 (talk) 08:03, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we generally leave it named as what it was last...but since there were so many International Hockey League's it might be better to call it the United Hockey League to avoid the bracketed disambiguators. -DJSasso (talk) 11:25, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

text:  The team went by Colonial for six years, United for ten, International for three.    Ravenswing  17:40, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Part III

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thread_title:  Blacklisted Links Found on the Main Page 

message: DJSasso is entirely right, Oknazevad: you do not get to claim that your personal opinion overrides seven different reliable sources.  Teams shift leagues all the time: no one claims that the ECHL is equal in talent level to the AHL just because, in recent years, a number of franchises have moved from one league to the other (and in some cases, back again).  Players got called up from the UHL to the ECHL, not the other way around.For another, CITEOVERKILL is an essay, and a snarky "Someone needs to read it" edit summary is uncivil -- we don't need pissing matches over how many of the several hundred unofficial essays people have spent their time perusing.  As it happens, I broadly agree with the essay, and I think the mania for inline citations has gone well overboard.  Obviously, though, some demand that level of citation.  This article happened to be one of those cases, and the very next time someone tries to strike that statement because the assertion rubs their amour propre the wrong way, they're all going back in there.   Ravenswing   01:37, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Yup, DJ is right.  Dbrodbeck (talk) 02:30, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oh for pity's sake.