I went to an Everblades Hockey playoff game 4/15/2016 against the Wheeling Nailers. Everblades lost that night, and the Nailers knocked the Everblades out of the playoffs.
Germain Arena Features
In addition to hosting Florida Everblades hockey, Southwest Florida’s premier entertainment venue offers a wide variety of choice entertainment. Since the arena opened in 1998, it has hosted NHL, NBA, USBL, and Arena football games. Starting in 2012, the arena became the home of the Ultimate Indoor Football League’s Florida Tarpons. Germain Arena has also hosted more than 300 different entertainment events such as Stars on Ice, Disney On Ice, WWE wrestling, Jeff Dunham, Boston Pops and Lord of the Dance along with headline concerts including Cher, Elton John, Alan Jackson, Guns ‘N Roses, Def Leppard, Sting, Keith Urban, Eric Church, Zac Brown Band, and Toby Keith. The arena also includes Breakaway Sports Pub, a restaurant overlooking the arena bowl, catering, meeting space, luxury suites, a pro shop and two adjacent recreational ice rinks. Germain Arena is a centrally located facility with a seating capacity of approximately 7,000 for most events. The facility is just minutes from Naples and Ft. Myers off of I-75 at Exit 123 in the growing Southwest Florida community of Estero.
GERMAIN ARENA STATS
Year Built: 1998
Square Feet: 171,000
Seating capacity for hockey: 7,181
Seating capacity for concerts: 8,500+
Number of Luxury Suites: 26
Number of ice sheets: 3
Naming Rights: Germain Automotive Group
Number of acres for Germain site: 30
Restaurant seating capacity: 220
Number of meeting rooms: 4
Florida Everblades</b?
The Florida Everblades Franchise History
Since their inception in 1998, the Florida Everblades have hosted more than 3.6 million fans in over 600 regular season games, with an average of 6,361 per game, and have finished in the top 5 in league attendance in 13 of their 17 seasons, leading the the league five times. The Everblades also hosted the Compuware /ECHL All-Star Game in 2003.
The Everblades have earned a post-season berth in 17 of 18 seasons of their existence in the ECHL. On May 23, 2012, the team won its first ECHL Championship with a 4-3 overtime victory over the Las Vegas Wranglers in Game 5 of the 2012 Kelly Cup Finals in front of a standing room only crowd at Germain Arena. During the 2003-04 season, the Everblades captured the Eastern Conference title and made their first ever trip to the Kelly Cup Finals, and followed that up by becoming the first team in Kelly Cup history to make back-to-back trips to the Kelly Cup Finals after capturing the 2004-05 American Conference Championship. Florida has also been awarded the Brabham Cup in 1998-99 & 2008-09, for finishing with the best regular season record in the entire ECHL. The team has amassed more than 750 wins in its 18-year history, and have helped place 31 players to the National Hockey League. The Everblades are the ECHL affiliate for the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes and Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Everblades compete in the ECHL which currently stands at 28 member teams. The ECHL is entering its 29th season, and over 600 former ECHL players have reached the National Hockey League.