The Sunshine Hockey League: Odd 1 out in the depths of the minor leagues


(Media guide for the West Palm Beach Blaze, circa 1993-94)


In the 1990s, fighting in hockey was definitely at a high point.

With basically every NHL team having their own dedicated enforcer, a concept the league now tries to distance itself from, both in it’s current game and its history, was once less feared and in essence restricted, as simply put, it filled the seats, and this was noticed from both a business and hockey perspective.

As more and more NHL 4th lines began to contain that designated tough guy (Florida Panthers and Paul Laus, New Jersey Devils and Mike Peluso etc.) Minor league teams looking to attract more fans did the same, causing lower league teams to notice that, so on and so forth.

With this, came the creation of new leagues all together, and soon, minor league hockey was a vast and winding landscape, unlike what it is nowadays, with the sole lower level minor leagues of note being the SPHL, FHL, and LNAH, the latter of which is struggling.
Instead, you had another 7 minor leagues on top of the aforementioned ECHL, AHL, and now defunct International Hockey League, all existing from 1991-92 all the way until 2003-2004.
The WCHL, WPHL, CHL, UHL, SHL, a failed WHA 2 attempt unbelievably, and most interestingly to me,

The SuHL, or the Sunshine Hockey League.

As hinted at by the name, the majority of the team’s in this league were from areas in and around Florida, from West Palm to Jacksonville, except for the Fresno Falcons, who joined in the league’s second season. The league lasted 3 years, each year’s schedule consisting of 52, 54, and 56 games respectively, after which 4 of the 5 teams in the league would engage in a 2 round playoff to determine the winner of the Sunshine cup.

Media guide for Lakeland Ice Warriors
(Credit to: hockeydb.com)
Media guide for Daytona Beach Sun Devils
(Credit to: hockeydb.com


For most of the team’s in the league, their coaches were former NHL players, with the West Palm Beach Blaze having former Canadiens defenseman Bill Nyrop behind the bench for their entire existence, and the Jacksonville Bullets having former Leafs enforcer Lou Franceschetti coaching their first season.



Created to capitalize on the growing popularity hockey was having in Florida following the creation of the Florida Panthers who at the time, held the record for most wins by an expansion team in their first season, the SuHL faced pretty reasonable attendance numbers for as small a league as it was, with an average of 2,886 people per game in its first season.
These decent numbers would continue into the league’s third and final season, with averages of 2,300 people per game, but a name change and attempted expansion of the league ultimately didn’t do much good, and once the city of West Palm sold their arena to a National religious group, the league was done for.

Now, I bet your saying to yourself that this just sounds like a standard story of a minor league that didn’t work out, what makes this one so special amongst others like the WCHL and WPHL (both of which had much more talented rosters).

Well, I’m just going to show a GIF below from an SuHL game, and you can see for yourself.



Yeah, this league didn’t mess around, as was the case with many of these lower level 90s minor leagues.

However, I think the SuHL is especially so, partly due to its violent and local nature, and partly because of the players on many of the team’s rosters.

You have journeyman like Yvan Corbin, who played for 19 minor league teams in a 10 year career, Denis Holland, a monstrous scorer for the Portland Winterhawks in the WHL (recording 429 points in 209 games) who was passed over by most minor league teams due to his small stature, making his living as a key scorer on weak teams, Jim Duhart, the all time leading scorer in UHL history who infamously left the LNAH after 14 games due to its tougher nature, as well as John Craighead, a notorious minor league goon who against all odds played 5 NHL games for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Most of these players played in the SuHL before going on to bigger and better things, and in all honesty that’s how I’d describe this league. As hockey began booming more and more in Florida, the SuHL was simply left behind as hockey in Florida moved on to bigger and better things, though I don’t think it can be too mad about it.

I first learned about this league’s existence a few years ago while randomly browsing Hockey DB player bios, and the local nature of it makes for some really interesting stories (like this one in the comments of a YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UOlx772qGQ). It’s worth a look if you have the free time, and I think what I’ve offered here suffices that this league was an interesting footnote in an period of hockey history most wish to forget. While there wasn’t much Sunshine in the league’s violent ways, it’s still a good representation of 90s hockey,

As a whole.

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