Macon Whoopee
Encyclopedia
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
teams, both of which were located in Macon, Georgia
Macon, Georgia
Macon is a city located in central Georgia, US. Founded at the fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is part of the Macon metropolitan area, and the county seat of Bibb County. A small portion of the city extends into Jones County. Macon is the biggest city in central Georgia...
. The teams played their home games at the Macon Coliseum
Macon Coliseum
The Macon Coliseum is a multi-purpose arena and convention center in Macon, Georgia, United States. It was home to the Macon Whoopee and Macon Trax ice hockey teams and also the Macon Knights arena football team until 2006. It is currently home to the Georgia Gwizzlies, a basketball team that plays...
.
The first team, known as the Whoopees, played in the Southern Hockey League in 1973. Despite a brief flash of national publicity due to the unusual nickname (NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
aired their scores and highlights on its NHL Game Of The Week), poor attendance led the team to disband in mid-season.
Hockey was not resurrected in Macon until 1996. A new team, known as the Whoopee (without the plural "s") played in the Central Hockey League
Central Hockey League
The Central Hockey League is a mid-level professional hockey league, owned by Global Entertainment Corporation. Its current champions are the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs, which defeated the Colorado Eagles four games to three in the 2011 playoffs....
from 1996 to 2001. In the 2001-2002 East Coast Hockey League season, Tallahassee Tiger Sharks were relocated to Macon Georgia and renamed the Whooppee. After several owners endured seasons of poor attendance and monetary losses, the team finally went under
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....
in 2002, and was moved to Lexington Kentucky, where the franchise was renamed the Men O' War.
The name 'Whoopee' was a reference to a sexual slang
Sexual slang
Sexual slang is a set of linguistic terms and phrases used to refer to sexual organs, processes, and activities; they are generally considered colloquial rather than formal or medical, and some may be seen as impolite or improper....
, popularized by the Gus Kahn
Gus Kahn
Gustav Gerson Kahn was a musician, songwriter and lyricist.-Biography:Kahn was born in Koblenz, Germany in 1886. The family emigrated from there to the United States and moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1890...
-penned tune "Makin' Whoopee" and the TV
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
game show
Game show
A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...
The Newlywed Game
The Newlywed Game
The Newlywed Game is an American television game show that pits newly married couples against each other in a series of revealing question rounds to determine how well the spouses know each other. The program, originally created by Nick Nicholson and E. Roger Muir The Newlywed Game is an American...
. Facilitating the double entendre
Double entendre
A double entendre or adianoeta is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often risqué or ironic....
, the second team's mascot was the Whooping Crane
Whooping Crane
The whooping crane , the tallest North American bird, is an endangered crane species named for its whooping sound. Along with the Sandhill Crane, it is one of only two crane species found in North America. The whooping crane's lifespan is estimated to be 22 to 24 years in the wild...
.
Efforts to continue professional hockey in Macon led to the formation of the Macon Trax
Macon Trax
The Macon Trax were a minor-league professional ice hockey team based in Macon, Georgia. They played in the low minor leagues Atlantic Coast Hockey League , World Hockey Association 2 and Southern Professional Hockey League , playing their home games at the Macon Coliseum...
, also now defunct.
The history of the original team is chronicled in the book Once Upon a Whoopee by Bill Buckley and Ed Grisamore.