Waterloo Black Hawks The Waterloo Black Hawks are a Tier 1 junior ice hockey team playing in the East Division of the United States Hockey League ( USHL ) . The Black Hawks ' home ice is the Young Arena located in Waterloo , Iowa . Early history . The Waterloo Black Hawks began as a semi - professional team in the USHL in 1962 , the league having started only a season before . The team ' s home ice was the McElroy Auditorium . The team started strong , winning the USHL championship every season from 1964 to 1968 . After the 1968 - 69 season , the Black Hawks went on a one - year hiatus to become the Minnesota North Stars ' top farm team , the Iowa Stars . The team finished 35 - 26 - 11 in 1969 - 70 , one point behind league champion Omaha ( whom the Stars would later lose to in the Central Professional Hockey League final series ) . The Stars reverted back to the Black Hawks and the USHL the very next year , amid financial losses topping $ 150 , 000 and a Stars move to Cleveland . Early junior history . After another decade of success in the 1970s , including more league titles in 1975 , ' 78 , and ' 79 , the Black Hawks reverted to junior hockey with the rest of the USHL in 1979 . They immediately won the Southern Division title in 1979 - 80 before head coach Jack Barzee moved the team to Dubuque the next season , becoming the Fighting Saints in the process . Waterloo was not without a team for long , however , as the USHL champion Hennepin Nordiques opted to move the team to Waterloo before the 1980 - 81 campaign . The new Black Hawks , unlike the Black Hawks of old , struggled . From 1980 to 1992 , when new head coach Scott Mikesch stepped behind the bench , the team went through eight different head coaches . Five of them coached between 1980 and 1982 . After the team ' s Southern Division title in 1980 , the Black Hawks would not celebrate a winning season again until 1993 - 94 , winning 20 games ( in a 48 - game season ) only four times during that span . The 1990s . Despite bad records and a decaying arena , the Black Hawks managed to turn out several future NHLers in the early 1990s . Twin star forwards Chris Ferraro and Peter Ferraro came over in 1991 from Dubuque and scored a combined 200 points in the 1991 - 92 season , and just two seasons later , Jason Blake notched 50 goals and 50 assists , the first 50 - goal , 50 - assist player in the USHL since Thunder Bay ' s Terry Menard seven years prior . In 1995 , the Black Hawks moved out of the old McElroy Auditorium into the brand - new Young Arena in downtown Waterloo . With that move and new owner Butch Johnson ' s purchase of the team almost simultaneously , things began to look up for the Black Hawks . Unfortunately , the records did not improve , and the team failed to finish above . 500 again until 1999 - 2000 . New head coach Scott Pionk brought a glimmer of hope to the Cedar Valley in 1997 - 98 with a 25 - 29 - 2 record , but a 16 - 37 - 3 record the next season led to his departure . Scott Koberinski ' s 28 - 26 - 4 record in 1999 - 2000 , followed by a 25 - 29 - 2 record the next year , brought even higher hopes , but a 21 - 38 - 2 record led to yet another coaching change . Recent success . New coach P . K . O ' Handley brought immediate changes to the Black Hawks landscape in 2002 - 03 , hauling in Waterloo ' s first division championship in 23 years with a 38 - 17 - 5 record and finishing only two points behind the Lincoln Stars in the Anderson Cup race . The next season brought the Hawks ' first USHL Clark Cup championship ever ( referenced below ) , and the first league title of any kind since 1979 , despite finishing 4th in the Eastern Division . Once again , O ' Handley ' s leadership brought a title in 2007 , this time the Anderson Cup , the first - ever regular season title for the Black Hawks in the junior era . The Black Hawks also found themselves one game away from winning the 2007 Clark Cup , before they were downed 3 - 0 by the Sioux Falls Stampede in the championship game , and they found themselves in the same state in the 2008 Clark Cup Finals , losing 4 - 3 to the Omaha Lancers in overtime in the final game of the series . Since the 1993 - 94 season , the Black Hawks have sent 103 players to the college ranks and have sent 73 alumni to the pro ranks in their 28 - year junior history , including 8 current NHL players . Under the leadership of O ' Handley and General Manager of Business Operations Doug Miller , the Black Hawks won the USHL Organization of the Year award for the 2002 - 03 , 2004 - 05 , and 2006 - 07 seasons . The USHL said of the Black Hawks in 2007 , " Once a franchise in a state of disarray , the Waterloo Black Hawks are now among the teams that sets the standard for how a team should be run . " O ' Handley also won Coach of the Year honors for the 2002 - 03 and 2006 - 07 seasons and the General Manager of Year award for the 2002 - 03 season . Rivalries . The Black Hawks have had some memorable rivalries with other USHL teams , most notably the current " Corridor Cup " rivalry with the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders . Other rivalries include a former rivalry with the old Dubuque Fighting Saints ( which were the Black Hawks prior to 1980 ) , a rivalry with the Sioux City Musketeers ( the only teams left from the 1979 USHL transformation ; the Des Moines Buccaneers were added to the league a year later ) , and the Buccaneers themselves ( because of the rich hockey heritage both teams share , and because travel between the two cities has been streamlined with four - lane retrofits of U . S . Highway 20 and Iowa Highway 330 . During the 1990s , the Black Hawks - Buccaneers rivalry was not nearly as active as it is now , due to the Buccaneers ' usual stance at the top of the league and the Black Hawks ' perennial place in the USHL ' s basement . Since the Buccaneers ' fall from domination at the end of the 1990s and the Black Hawks ' recent rise , the teams have found themselves on much more equal footing lately , and the rivalry is as alive as ever . Season - by - season record . Senior / Professional Years . " Note : GP = Games Played , W = Wins , L = Losses , T = Ties , GF = Goals for , GA = Goals against , Pts = Points " Junior Years . " Note : GP = Games Played , W = Wins , L = Losses , T = Ties , OTL = Overtime Losses , SOL = Shootout Losses , GF = Goals for , GA = Goals against , Pts = Points "