KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Two of East Tennessee's local sports teams are joining up to support another team — the Knoxville Ice Bears.
The Tennessee Smokies and One Knox SC, a baseball team and a soccer team, respectively, announced the "Sell Out The Ice Bears" campaign on Monday. The campaign aims to make sure fans pack the hockey team's coliseum for its upcoming game on Friday.
The Smokies also said its mascot, Homer Hound, would be at the hockey game on Friday.
On Dec. 13, the team announced it would need to postpone games originally scheduled for Dec. 15 and Dec. 16 due to an "unforeseen mechanical issue" with the Knoxville Civic Coliseum. The matchup against Roanoke was moved to Jan. 7 and the game against Quad City was moved to March 24.
On Dec. 22, the Knoxville Ice Bears will play against the Birmingham Bulls while also presenting their "Pucks and Princesses" theme night.
According to a Knoxville leader, the issue with the coliseum was related to a blown bearing in its chiller. The hockey team said there "hasn't been enough investment from the city to keep these things from happening," in a release.
City leaders said that from 2018 through 2019, they spent around $10 million to renovate the coliseum. They also said that since 2020, the city spent a total of around $5 million on the coliseum.
"Long before I was mayor, there's been some deferred maintenance on our public facilities, and the coliseum is no exception. I understand there was a study done under Mayor Rogero's administration that said to really fix it up would cost $40 million. It's not a lack of awareness of the problems, it's a lack of potential revenue sources to address them. I really apologize to the Ice Bears' fans and to the Ice Bears team and coaches that they had their season interrupted. We're going to fix it and make sure it doesn't happen again," said Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon during an interview for WBIR's Inside Tennessee.