The team replaced an American Hockey League franchise of the same name that was purchased by the Vancouver Canucks and moved out of Peoria to Utica, New York.
[3] On May 13, 2013, it was reported by the Peoria Journal Star that after being told the city would no longer have an AHL team, former Rivermen executives John Butler and Bart Rogers and former Rivermen owner Bruce Saurs announced that they had applied for admission into the Southern Professional Hockey League in an attempt to save hockey in Peoria.
Butler and Rogers' plan also included for the group to purchase the Bloomington Blaze of the struggling Central Hockey League and also move them to the SPHL.
There was an SPHL Board of Governors and franchise general managers emergency conference call scheduled for the morning of May 14, 2013, to decide on the admission of the Rivermen and the Blaze.
The Thunder would be shut down after one season when another ownership group obtained an expansion team in the junior United States Hockey League for Bloomington,[5] isolating the Rivermen in the north.