Waterloo Black Hawks

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Waterloo Black Hawks
City Waterloo, Iowa
League United States Hockey League
Division West
Founded 1962
Home arena Young Arena
Colors Black, Red, and White
Owner(s) Butch Johnson
General manager P. K. O'Handley
Head coach P. K. O'Handley
Media Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, KWWL
Franchise history
1962–1980 Waterloo Black Hawks
1980-2001 Dubuque Fighting Saints
1979-1980 Hennepin Nordiques
1980-Present Waterloo Black Hawks
Championships
Regular season titles 2007
Division Championships 1980, 2003, 2007
Playoff championships 2004

The Waterloo Black Hawks are a Tier 1 junior ice hockey team playing in the Western Division of the United States Hockey League (USHL). The Black Hawks' home ice is the Young Arena located in Waterloo, Iowa.

History

Early history

The Waterloo Black Hawks began as a semi-professional team in the USHL in 1962. The league had been renamed prior to the season after beginning in 1948 as the American Amateur Hockey League. 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 Stars 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 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 1978, and '79, the Black Hawks converted 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 retained the history, logos, and arena of the old team.

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 from Dubuque midway through the 1991-1992 season and scored a combined 200 points in total. 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 in 1997, 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. Waterloo was edged again in a five-game finals series by the Green Bay Gamblers in 2012. Since the 1993-94 season, the Black Hawks have sent over 100 players to the college ranks and have sent 10 alumni to the National Hockey League in their 32-year junior history.

O'Handley's influence carried on off the ice as well as the Black Hawks won the USHL Organization of the Year award for the 2002-03, 2004–05, and 2006–07 seasons due to his unparalleled leadership. 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 and 2011-12 seasons.

In June of 2012, Eric Petersen and a small group of investors purchased the Waterloo Black Hawks from Butch Johnson and added a video board to Young Arena with the help of a large donation from the Black Hawk Gaming Association.

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. In 2010, The USHL saw the renewal of the rivalry between Dubuque and Waterloo. Dubuque took back the old name of the Dubuque Fighting Saints and renewed the fire between the two teams. Currently Waterloo shares a three-way rivalry with Dubuque and Cedar Rapids in the Prairie Farms Cowbell Cup.

Former Black Hawks in pro hockey

Roster

As of December 14, 2011.

Forwards
# St/Pr/Co Player Shoots Height Weight Birthday Hometown College commitment
13 Minnesota Tony Cameranesi R 5' 10" 175 lbs. Aug 12, 1993 Maple Grove, Minnesota Minnesota–Duluth
91 Minnesota Taylor Cammarata L 5' 6" 145 lbs. May 13, 1995 Plymouth, Minnesota Minnesota
44 California Max Edson 5' 9" 170 lbs. Feb 3, 1992 Hermosa Beach, California Air Force
19 New Jersey Jamie Hill 5' 11" 165 lbs. Feb 6, 1992 Glassboro, New Jersey New Hampshire
12 Illinois Vince Hinostroza R 5' 10" 170 lbs. Apr 3, 1994 Bartlett, Illinois Notre Dame
18 Missouri Mike Huntebrinker 5' 11" 180 lbs. Jul 2, 1992 Chesterfield, Missouri Minnesota State
24 British Columbia Scott MacDonald R 6' 0" 190 lbs. Oct 7, 1991 Surrey, British Columbia None
17 Minnesota A.J. Michaelson L 6' 0" 185 lbs. Feb 8, 1994 Apple Valley, Minnesota Minnesota
67 Connecticut Mark Naclerio 5' 11" 175 lbs. Apr 4, 1992 Milford, Connecticut Brown
15 Ohio Josh Nenadal 5' 10" 185 lbs. May 14, 1994 Brecksville, Ohio None
16 Illinois Ryan Papa 5' 7" 170 lbs. Jan 6, 1994 Prospect Heights, Illinois St. Cloud State
27 Ontario Aaron Pearce 6' 0" 190 lbs. Apr 30, 1992 Mississauga, Ontario Nebraska–Omaha
21 Minnesota Joe Rehkamp 5' 11" 175 lbs. Feb 6, 1991 Plymouth, Minnesota None
61 Minnesota Tyler Zepeda 5' 9" 170 lbs. Jan 16, 1991 Woodbury, Minnesota None
Defensemen
# St/Pr/Co Player Shoots Height Weight Birthday Hometown College commitment
4 Colorado Matias Cleland 6' 0" 180 lbs. Jan 28, 1994 Longmont, Colorado New Hampshire
22 New York Peter Hand 5' 11" 190 lbs. Aug 27, 1993 Schenectady, New York Ohio State
10 Minnesota James Hansen 6' 2" 220 lbs. Sep 9, 1991 Maple Grove, Minnesota Bemidji State
3 Wisconsin Ian McCoshen L 6' 3" 205 lbs. Aug 5, 1995 Hudson, Wisconsin None
28 North Carolina Trevor Owens 6' 2" 190 lbs. Nov 24, 1993 Raleigh, North Carolina None
72 Illinois Mitch Witek 6' 1" 194 lbs. Feb 4, 1992 Downers Grove, Illinois Yale
51 Minnesota Eddie Wittchow L 6' 4" 200 lbs. Oct 31, 1992 Burnsville, Minnesota Wisconsin
Goaltenders
# St/Pr/Co Player Catches Height Weight Birthday Hometown College commitment
35 Pennsylvania Eamon McAdam 6' 2" 180 lbs. Sep 24, 1994 Perkasie, Pennsylvania Penn State

References

External links

East Division
West Division
Sports teams based in Iowa
Baseball
Basketball
Football
Hockey
Roller derby
Soccer
NCAA Div. I college athletics
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