WHEELING, W.Va. (WVVA) – An NHL team has parted ways with West Virginia\u2019s sole pro hockey team.<\/p>\n
The Metropolitan Division\u2019s Pittsburgh Penguins announced July 16 on social media that after nearly 30 years, the organization would be parting ways with the Wheeling Nailers. <\/p>\n
The Nailers<\/a> got their start back in 1992 and since 2000 have been the mountain state\u2019s only professional hockey team.<\/p>\n In the released statement, Penguins General Manager Kyle Dubas did not cite a specific cause for the split, however he did extent his thanks to both the team and the city of Wheeling, the Ohio County seat. <\/p>\n From Stanley Cup champions like Tom Kuhnhackl, to rising talents like Avery Hayes and Sergei Murashov, so many players started their professional career in Wheeling and went on to make an impact in Pittsburgh and throughout the NHL…the Nailers have run a first-class operation for many years, and any organization would be fortunate to have them as an affiliate…We wish the city of Wheeling, the Nailers and all of their fans continued success as a great ECHL franchise.<\/p>\n Read the full statement here:<\/p>\n Also on July 16, the Penguins announced its affiliation partnership<\/a> with the Florida Everblades. <\/p>\n The Wheeling Nailers released its own statement to social media, returning thanks to the Penguins and acknowledged a long-standing relationship between the Steel City team\u2019s owners<\/a> and the Everblades.<\/p>\n We are sad to see the affiliation end, but understand the lineage of the Hoffmann Family of Companies owning the Pittsburgh penguins and the Florida Everblades. We have already begun speaking with other NHL teams about our affiliation for the future.<\/p>\n Read the Nailers\u2019 remarks here:<\/p>\n WVVA will keep you updated as this story develops.<\/p>\n Watch WVVA on your phone<\/a>, Roku<\/a>, Apple TV<\/a> and Amazon Fire TV stick<\/a>.<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 WVVA. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WHEELING, W.Va. (WVVA) – An NHL team has parted ways with West Virginia\u2019s sole pro hockey team. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-245454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}