Glads Become ATL Gladiators

Gwinnett Gladiators General Manager and Vice President of Business Operations Joe Gelderman announced today that the Gwinnett Gladiators will officially change their franchise name to the Atlanta Gladiators effective immediately. We are very excited to announce that our name will transform to the Atlanta Gladiators with the 2015-2016 season, said Gelderman. We already consider ourselves to be part of the Atlanta sports landscape, and given the absence of NHL hockey in the area we want to make sure people understand that we are not just Gwinnetts hockey team. We are the professional hockey team for all of the metro Atlanta community. We hope that incorporating Atlanta into our name will allow more fans to identify with us, and will inspire people from all over the metro area to continue to support and embrace our organization. This was not a decision we made lightly, and in doing so we made sure to consult with a cross section of our fan base, as well as some of our corporate partners. The feedback we received was overwhelmingly in support of making this adjustment.As part of the name change, the Gladiators will update their primary and wordmark logos to reflect the Atlanta designation. The rest of the Gladiators logos will remain the same, as will the team colors. The squad will skate in their traditional white (home) and black (away) jerseys this season, along with the third G-Flame alternate sweater introduced in January 2015. The franchise has been known as the Gwinnett Gladiators since it relocated to metro Atlanta from Mobile in 2003. To correspond with Wednesdays announcement, single game tickets for the 2015-2016 season are now available for purchase. The Atlanta Gladiators are set to drop the puck on their 13th season at The Arena at Infinite Energy Center in October 2015. For ticket information, visit the official team website at www.atlantagladiators.com or call the main office line at 770-497-5100.The Gladiators are members of the ECHL, the nations premier AA hockey league. All home games are played at the 11,355-seat Arena at Infinite Energy Center, located just off I-85 on Sugarloaf Parkway in Duluth where parking is always free. The Gladiators have established an unrivaled commitment to excellence, maintaining a distinctive reputation for affordable and family-friendly sports entertainment and consistently ranked as one of the top Things To Do in the Atlanta area and across the North Georgia region.For all the latest team news, contests, and more visit AtlantaGladiators.com, or like the Gladiators on Facebook (www.facebook.com/AtlantaGladiators), follow the team on Twitter (www.twitter.com/ATLGladiators), Instagram (www.instagram.com/atlgladiators) or Snapchat (www.snapchat.com) at gladshockey . -###-CONTACT:Christina JohnsonSenior Director of Digital, Media, and Game Operations770-497-5118 cjohnson(at)atlantagladiators(dot)com