Steve Chapman Elected to the ECHL Hall of Fame Class of 2018

The ECHL announced on Thursday that the 2018 inductees for the ECHL Hall of Fame are Steve Chapman, Sam Ftorek and Jason Saal.

Steve Chapman began his involvement with the ECHL in 1992, when he was hired as a sales executive with the Birmingham Bulls. Three years later, he was offered, and accepted, the General Manger position for the Mobile Mysticks, who brought professional hockey to Mobile, Alabama for the first time. In 2001, he played an integral role in relocating the team to Gwinnett County, Georgia, where the Gladiators began play in the 2003-04 season. The team reached the playoffs in each of their first six seasons in Atlanta, and finished in the top six in League attendance five times in their first six seasons. Chapman served as Chairman of the ECHL Board of Governors for nine seasons from 2005-06 through 2014-15, and is the only person to win the ECHL Executive of the Year award in back-to-back seasons, doing so in 2005-06 and 2006-07. He departed the Gladiators following the 2014-15 season and is in his third season as Group VP, Brand, Community & Partnership Development for the National Hockey League’s St. Louis Blues.

Chapman, along with the other two inductees will be formally inducted as the 11th class of the ECHL Hall of Fame at a banquet ceremony that will be held in conjunction with the 2018 CCM/ECHL All Star Classic. The 2018 ECHL Hall of Fame ceremony, presented by BFL CANADA and Sutton Special Risk, will take place on Monday, January 15 at 6:30pm at the Hilton Indianapolis Hotel & Suites, the official host hotel of the 2018 CCM/ECHL All-Star Classic. The Keynote Address will be delivered by Chicago Blackhawks Senior Vice President of Hockey Operations, Al MacIsaac, a 2014 inductee into the ECHL Hall of Fame.

The Atlanta Gladiators 15th Anniversary season continues at the Infinite Energy Arena on Friday, December 8th against the Greenville Swamp Rabbits at 7:35 PM. 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 nation’s premier "AA" hockey league. All home games are played at the 10,867-seat Infinite Energy Arena, 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".

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