4 products

The Western Professional Hockey League Collection — Royal Retros WPHL Fan Shop

Authentic WPHL Throwbacks. Custom Names & Numbers. Sizes S–5XL. Five Seasons, Four Forgotten Texas-and-Gulf-Coast Teams.

Royal Retros carries hockey throwbacks for a league that barely lasted five years and left almost no merchandise behind: the Western Professional Hockey League, the Texas-and-Gulf-Coast minor league that ran from 1996 to 2001 before merging into the Central Hockey League. We stock four in-stock products across four WPHL franchises — Waco Wizards, El Paso Buzzards, Lake Charles Ice Pirates and Lubbock Cotton Kings — one custom jersey and three premium T-shirts. The jersey runs $89.99 for a standard cut and $119.99 for a goalie cut, with free custom name and number on the standard build. T-shirts are $29.99. Sizes run Small through 5XL in our core colorways, with a couple of accent colors topping out at 4XL. If you grew up watching a team that folded before most fans outside its own county ever heard of it, this is one of the only places on the internet that remembers it existed.

What You Can Shop in the WPHL Collection

WPHL Jerseys — one in-stock custom hockey jersey, the Waco Wizards, available in Black and White with twill-style crest construction and period-correct striping. Free custom name and number on the standard cut. $89.99 standard, $119.99 for the goalie cut. Browse the wider custom hockey jersey range if you want to cross-shop other leagues.

WPHL T-Shirts — three premium pre-shrunk soft-blend tees at $29.99 apiece, covering El Paso, Lake Charles and Lubbock. Each comes in multiple colorways; Black, White and Athletic Heather run the full S–5XL range, while accent colors like Team Purple, Orange, Leaf and True Royal top out at 4XL. More at our full hockey T-shirt collection.

Customization — the Waco Wizards jersey offers free name and number personalization. Custom items are made to order and are final sale.

Sizes — Small through 5XL on the jersey and on most tee colorways. We do not upcharge for big & tall sizes.

Shop by WPHL Team

El Paso Buzzards — the league's first dynasty, back-to-back President's Cup champions in 1997 and 1998 under Olympic-program coach Todd Brost. Our El Paso tee is one of the only pieces of Buzzards merchandise made in the twenty-first century.

Waco Wizards — a worst-to-first Central Division title in 1998–99 sandwiched between two of the roughest seasons in league history. Shop the Wizards jersey, built in the team's purple, red, teal and black.

Lake Charles Ice Pirates — four seasons of Louisiana hockey, coached for part of that run by former 60-goal NHL scorer Dennis Maruk. Shop the Ice Pirates tee.

Lubbock Cotton Kings — West Texas hockey that outlived the WPHL itself, playing on into the Central Hockey League until 2007. Shop the Cotton Kings tee, and cross-shop the Central Hockey League collection for the franchise's later years.

Why Royal Retros Is the Home of WPHL Throwback Gear

  • Coverage that does not exist anywhere else. The WPHL played five seasons and folded into another league in 2001. Almost nobody has made apparel for these teams since.
  • Four franchises, four products, zero corner-cutting. Every one of these teams gets a real design built to its own colors, not a generic template with a different city name stamped on it.
  • Free customization on the jersey. Add your own name and number at no extra cost on the standard cut.
  • Sizes Small through 5XL. No big & tall upcharge on any product in the collection.
  • Deep minor-pro cross-shopping. Pair a WPHL piece with the Central Hockey League, the wider Minor League Hockey HQ or Legacy Hockey in a single order.

Quick Buying Questions

What sizes do WPHL products come in?

The jersey runs Small through 5XL, plus a Goalie Cut. Tees run Small through 5XL in Black, White and Athletic Heather; a few accent colorways top out at 4XL. We do not upcharge for big & tall sizes.

Can I customize a WPHL jersey?

Yes — the Waco Wizards jersey offers free custom name and number on the standard cut. Custom items are made to order and are final sale.

What do WPHL products cost?

The jersey is $89.99 standard or $119.99 for the goalie cut. T-shirts are $29.99.

How fast does it ship and what is the return policy?

Standard products ship within 3–5 business days. Custom items with a personalized name or number are made to order and ship within 7–10 business days. Custom items are final sale. Standard items follow our return policy at /pages/returns.

Gift Ideas from the WPHL Collection

  • For the West Texas hockey diehard — the Waco Wizards jersey with a custom name and number.
  • For the Louisiana hockey fan who remembers the Civic Center crowd — the Lake Charles Ice Pirates tee.
  • For anyone who followed the league's first dynasty — the El Paso Buzzards tee, honoring back-to-back champions.
  • For the Lubbock native who watched Cotton Kings hockey grow up into the CHL — the Lubbock Cotton Kings tee.

What Was the Western Professional Hockey League?

The Western Professional Hockey League was a low-level independent minor professional hockey league that played five seasons, from 1996 to 2001, with franchises concentrated in Texas and reaching into Louisiana, New Mexico, Arkansas and Mississippi. It was not affiliated with the NHL and did not exist to develop NHL prospects the way the Central Hockey League once had — it was built as an independent business, chasing minor-league hockey into markets, many of them college towns and small cities, that had never had a professional hockey team of any kind. The league played its first game on October 16, 1996 and its last on May 5, 2001, when it merged into the rival Central Hockey League. Rich Kozuback served as league president for the WPHL's entire existence, from January 1996 through the May 2001 merger.

How Big Did the WPHL Get?

The WPHL started with six founding teams in 1996–97 — Amarillo Rattlers, Austin Ice Bats, Central Texas Stampede, El Paso Buzzards, New Mexico Scorpions and Waco Wizards — and expanded aggressively for the rest of the decade. Fort Worth Brahmas, Lake Charles Ice Pirates, Monroe Moccasins, Odessa Jackalopes, San Angelo Outlaws and the original Shreveport Mudbugs joined for 1997–98. Abilene Aviators, Alexandria Warthogs, Arkansas GlacierCats, Corpus Christi Ice Rays and Tupelo T-Rex followed for 1998–99. By the league's fourth season, 1999–2000, the WPHL had ballooned to a peak of 18 teams spread across five states, with Texas alone fielding 11 clubs, and the Lubbock Cotton Kings joined that same season. That kind of growth outran the markets that could actually support it. A number of ownership groups entered the league without the money or the experience to run a team properly, and the back half of the WPHL's history is a steady string of franchises folding mid-season, missing payroll, or simply not showing up. The Tucson Scorch may be the strangest case in the league's history: the franchise went through an entire training camp for the 1999–2000 season and was then expelled from the league on opening day, before playing a single game. By the WPHL's fifth and final season, 2000–01, four of the clubs that had joined during the expansion boom — Abilene, Alexandria, Arkansas and Waco — were already gone, and the Shreveport Mudbugs had relocated across the river to become the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs. The league that merged into the Central Hockey League that May was smaller and steadier than the 18-team giant of the year before, but it never fully recovered from the pace of its own growth.

Arenas of the WPHL

The WPHL played in the kind of buildings minor-league hockey has always played in: aging municipal coliseums built for rodeos and livestock shows decades before anyone put ice in them. The Waco Wizards played at the Heart O' Texas Coliseum, a 5,254-seat building that opened in 1953 and hosted the Wizards for their entire run. The Lake Charles Ice Pirates played at the Lake Charles Civic Center, which opened in 1972. The El Paso Buzzards played at the El Paso County Coliseum, a rodeo venue that still hosts junior hockey today. The Lubbock Cotton Kings played at the Lubbock Municipal Coliseum, later renamed City Bank Coliseum — the same building whose lease dispute ended the franchise in 2007. None of these venues were purpose-built hockey arenas, and it showed in the attendance numbers by the league's final years: El Paso, one of the WPHL's flagship markets and its first two-time champion, posted the lowest single-season total attendance of any club that completed a full 2000–01 schedule. A league that had ballooned to 18 teams in five years was already shrinking back down by the time it merged into the Central Hockey League.

Who Won the President's Cup?

The WPHL's championship was the President's Cup, and only two franchises ever won it in the league's five seasons. The El Paso Buzzards won the first two titles in league history, in 1996–97 and again in 1997–98, when winger Jamie Thompson scored 71 goals and 122 points in just 58 games and El Paso swept the Fort Worth Brahmas in the final. After that, the Shreveport Mudbugs — playing under two different names — won three straight championships: 1999 and 2000 as the Shreveport Mudbugs, and 2001 as the merged Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs. No other WPHL franchise, including any of the other three we carry gear for, ever won the President's Cup. That is part of what makes El Paso's back-to-back run the league's defining story.

Why did the Waco Wizards fold in the middle of a season?

The Waco Wizards folded in December 1999 because a new ownership group bounced a rent check. Original owner Joe Milano lost a reported $3 million running the team through its first three seasons and put the club up for sale in the summer of 1999. A Canadian minor-league baseball executive named Stu Kehoe talked a Corpus Christi radio station owner, Rick Dames, into buying the Wizards and installed himself and his wife in the front office. Two months into the 1999–2000 season, the Kehoes wrote a bad check for the team's rent to the Heart O' Texas Coliseum, resigned, and moved back to Canada. The WPHL revoked Waco's franchise a few days later. The Wizards' best season had come just one year earlier — a worst-to-first turnaround under new head coach Todd Lalonde, the league's 1998–99 Coach of the Year, that won the WPHL's Central Division with a 40-22-7 record before the team was eliminated in the playoffs' second round by the San Angelo Outlaws. That same 1998–99 season, Waco goaltender Kory Cooper swept both the league's Outstanding Goaltender and Rookie of the Year awards.

Why did the El Paso Buzzards win back-to-back titles?

The El Paso Buzzards won back-to-back President's Cups in 1996–97 and 1997–98 because they had the league's best player and a championship-tested coach from the start. Todd Brost, a former member of Canada's Olympic hockey program, coached El Paso to the inaugural title in the WPHL's first season. The following year, winger Jamie Thompson had one of the most dominant offensive seasons in minor-league hockey history — 71 goals and 122 points in 58 games — and the Buzzards beat Lake Charles in the first round, survived a seven-game series against New Mexico, and then swept Fort Worth in the final. El Paso played its home games at the El Paso County Coliseum and remained in the league through the 2001 merger, continuing on as a Central Hockey League franchise through 2003.

What happened to the Lake Charles Ice Pirates?

The Lake Charles Ice Pirates played four seasons of WPHL hockey, from 1997 to 2001, and folded after a financially disastrous final year. Former NHL 60-goal scorer Dennis Maruk coached the Ice Pirates in their 1997–98 debut season before resigning partway through, though he stayed close to the team and even signed a five-game playing contract in the spring of 1999, picking up two assists at age 43. A new ownership group called Top Shelf Hockey LLC bought the team in April 2000, and the following season the club repeatedly failed to make payroll, lost a reported $600,000, and folded in June 2001 — the same month the WPHL itself ceased to exist. Forward Billy Lund, who played all four Ice Pirates seasons, finished as the franchise's all-time leader with 92 goals and 189 assists in 277 games.

What became of the Lubbock Cotton Kings?

The Lubbock Cotton Kings outlived the WPHL itself. The franchise played its first game in October 1999, going 42-24-4 in its debut season, and reached the WPHL championship series in its second season, 2000–01, before losing to the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs. When the WPHL merged into the Central Hockey League after that season, Lubbock came along and kept playing hockey at the Lubbock Municipal Coliseum — later renamed City Bank Coliseum — through 2007. The franchise's end came from the building rather than the ice: the Cotton Kings could not reach a lease agreement with the City of Lubbock, and the CHL suspended the team's operations in June 2007. It was never revived. Cross-shop the Central Hockey League collection for the Cotton Kings' revival-era CHL years.

How Did the WPHL Merge Into the Central Hockey League?

The Western Professional Hockey League ceased to exist on May 30, 2001, when it merged into the rival Central Hockey League. Ten former WPHL franchises joined the CHL for the 2001–02 season, including Lubbock, Austin, Odessa, Amarillo and several others, and the merger effectively ended the increasingly costly competition between the two Texas-based leagues for the same players and the same markets. The consolidation did not save most of the individual franchises — of the ten clubs that made the jump, only the Fort Worth Brahmas were still playing a decade later, lasting through the 2012–13 CHL season before folding for good.

Is the WPHL the same as the West Coast Hockey League?

No, and the similar abbreviations cause real confusion. The Western Professional Hockey League (WPHL) was a Texas-and-Gulf-Coast circuit that played from 1996 to 2001. The West Coast Hockey League (WCHL) was a separate, unrelated minor league that operated on the Pacific coast from 1995 to 2003. The two leagues shared no teams, no ownership and no history — only a name that looks similar on paper.

What Makes Ours Period-Correct

Construction and accuracy. Sewn-on tackle-twill numbers and lettering where the original build called for it, era-correct fonts and colors, and true-to-original construction — every WPHL design is checked against period references before it goes live.

Extended WPHL FAQ

What was the Western Professional Hockey League?

A low-level independent minor professional hockey league that played five seasons, from 1996 to 2001, with franchises mostly in Texas and reaching into Louisiana, New Mexico, Arkansas and Mississippi. It merged into the Central Hockey League in 2001.

How many teams played in the WPHL?

The league started with six teams in 1996–97 and grew to a peak of 18 teams in 1999–2000, before contracting sharply in its final two seasons.

Which WPHL teams won championships?

Only two franchises ever won the President's Cup: the El Paso Buzzards, back-to-back in 1997 and 1998, and the Shreveport/Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs, three straight from 1999 through 2001.

Why did the WPHL fold?

The league did not technically fold — it merged into the Central Hockey League after the 2000–01 season. But by then, years of over-expansion and undercapitalized ownership groups had already thinned the league considerably, and the merger was as much a consolidation of two struggling businesses as it was an acquisition.

Are these officially licensed?

No. These are heritage tribute reproductions inspired by long-defunct minor-league hockey franchises. Royal Retros is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Western Professional Hockey League, the Central Hockey League, or any team named on this page.

Is this gear connected to any hockey league or team?

No. Royal Retros is an independent throwback and tribute apparel shop. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any hockey league, team or organization. These are heritage-inspired designs made for fans of defunct and forgotten franchises, and we carry them because nobody else does.

How many WPHL products does Royal Retros carry?

Four in-stock products covering four WPHL franchises — one custom jersey and three T-shirts. That is rare, dedicated coverage of a league that most retailers have never touched.

Can I get a team you do not stock?

Tell us. Amarillo, Austin, Central Texas, New Mexico, Odessa, San Angelo, Fort Worth and Shreveport all had real WPHL runs and all have fans still looking for gear.

What is the difference between a jersey and a tee in this collection?

The jersey is a full hockey sweater at $89.99 standard or $119.99 for a goalie cut, with twill-style crest construction and free custom name and number. T-shirts are premium pre-shrunk soft-blend tees at $29.99 with printed graphics. Both run S–5XL in most colorways.

Shop Related Collections

The Western Professional Hockey League at Royal Retros — Authentic WPHL Throwbacks. Custom Names & Numbers. Sizes S–5XL. Five Seasons, Four Forgotten Texas-and-Gulf-Coast Teams.