The New Orleans Brass played in the East Coast Hockey League from 1997 to 2002. Their home ice was the Memorial Auditorium, then later the New Orleans Arena. When pro basketball returned to town, the new hoops team became the arena's top tenant and insisted the Brass bear the entire cost of converting the facility to hockey for all its games. Unable to return to Memorial Auditorium, whose ice making equipment had been removed as part of a renovation, the team folded.
