The Phoenix team was a founder member of the Elite Ice Hockey League upon its formation in 2003, playing in the 17,500 capacity Manchester Arena.

[1] In 2002, the Manchester Storm, once the best-supported Ice Hockey club in Europe, ran into serious financial trouble and was folded.

The newly formed Manchester Phoenix would be one of the founding members of the British Elite Ice Hockey League and played out of the MEN Arena for their inaugural season.

Under player-coach Rick Brebant, and later Paul Heavey, the team finished sixth out of eight in the league, the final qualifying place for the playoffs.

Phoenix finished second in their Playoff group ahead of the Belfast Giants, qualifying for the semi-final, where they were beaten 6–1 by the Nottingham Panthers.

[4] Despite an impressive beginning, with 3,600 turning out for the first home game against the London Racers, crowds would not be consistent and it soon became apparent that ice hockey at the busiest indoor venue in Europe would no longer be viable with the season's average attendance being just 2,150 per game, falling far short of the rumoured number of 3,000 needed to cover costs.

[6] In November 2005, the club announced details of a new rink to be built in partnership with Nikal, David McLean and Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council.

[8] With progress being made, the Phoenix confirmed their inclusion in the EIHL once again, for the 2006–07 season with the Ice Dome scheduled to host its first game on 24 September 2006.

Unfortunately for Hand and the team, unexpected delays followed and so in the interim Phoenix home games were held at either IceSheffield or Deeside Leisure Centre.

After further construction and two further missed completion dates, the rink eventually opened with a reduced capacity of 1,000 on 25 February 2007, with Phoenix playing host to the Basingstoke Bison.

[15] Again the proposed timescales proved unachievable and, the new rink was not able to be even started in time for January 2017, making the business model of playing from Blackpool unviable.

Again two high scoring games would follow; the Phoenix lost 5–4 in Sheffield, ensuring a tense return leg at the Ice Dome.

Despite scoring four goals, the Phoenix defence again proved to be a problem, with the game ending 4–4 in front of a sell out crowd of 2150.

It was also during this weekend that Silver Blades made the announcement that their proposal concerning the renewal of the ice time agreement could not be agreed with the club despite the offer of reduced rental costs,[26] which left the club playing all their "home" games in Deeside, North Wales, Blackpool, and Widnes during the following 2 seasons.

During the team's first season, the average attendance for all home league fixtures was given as 2,267,[27] in a 17,245-seat arena (although only 4,500 of the lower bowl seats were made available for public use during games.