primary AHL affiliate, the Springfield Falcons. Before the resumption of the new season on August 30, 2012, the Peoria Rivermen announced that the IceMen would be their ECHL farm club, cutting ties with the Alaska Aces. The IceMen announced on June 5, 2014, that they had hired Dwight Mullins as the new head coach and was joined by former IceMen player Josh Beaulieu as assistant coach. Prior to the 2014–15 season, the IceMen agreed to a new affiliation contract with the Ottawa Senators and their AHL affiliate, the Binghamton Senators, after losing their Blue Jackets affiliation. In January 2015, Mullins was replaced by Al Sims due to a poor start to the season (9-16-4). On November 16, 2015, team owner Ron Geary wrote a letter to the IceMen fans that the team's operating lease with the Ford Center was ending after the 2015–16 season. Despite attempts to negotiate a lease extension with the city since February 2015, the two parties had not yet come to an agreement on new terms with the upcoming December 1 deadline (later extended to Dec. 15 and then again to January 6 when the 15th deadline was not met). Evansville had been reported to have been paying the highest rent in the ECHL since moving to the Ford Center in 2011, with as much as $650,000 per season compared to the league median of about $152,000. The City of Evansville and Geary were unable to come to an agreement before the final ECHL deadline and Geary began relocation discussions with the City of Owensboro, Kentucky. On January 19, it was announced that Geary had agreed to terms with Owensboro and intended to relocate the team to the Owensboro Sportscenter if the IceMen were forced to leave the Ford Center. On February 8, 2016, the City of Evansville announced that it had secured an expansion team in the Southern Professional Hockey League to play at the Ford Center beginning in the 2016–17 season, thus displacing the IceMen franchise from Evansville. Finally, on March 14, the IceMen and the ECHL announced the franchise's relocation to Owensboro has been approved but the franchise would have to go dormant for the 2016–17 season to allow time for the necessary renovations on the Owensboro Sportscenter to be completed. However, by September 2016, Geary still had not taken over management of the Sportscenter and the City of Owensboro announced a different