Mississippi Sea Wolves | |
---|---|
City | Biloxi, Mississippi |
League | Federal Prospects Hockey League |
Division | Continental |
Founded | 2021 |
Home arena | Mississippi Coast Coliseum |
Owner(s) | Barry Soskin |
General manager | Joe Pace Jr. |
Head coach | Ray Tremblay |
Media | WLOX |
Website | https://www.mississippiseawolves.com/ |
The Mississippi Sea Wolves are a professional hockey team located in Biloxi, Mississippi, and play at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. They currently play in the Federal Prospects Hockey League. The team is named after a former ECHL team that played in Biloxi from 1996 to 2009.
On July 19, 2021, it was announced that the Federal Prospects Hockey League (FPHL) were going to host three neutral site games in Biloxi in order to garner momentum and fan support for a new team. The team would be owned by Barry Soskin with Joe Pace Jr running the operations. Biloxi Pro Hockey sold 20,163 tickets in December 2021 and an announcement was made on December 30 that a new Sea Wolves team would return in 2022 with a multi-year lease agreement to be signed in February. [1] Biloxi Pro Hockey set FPHL attendance records during the neutral site games twice. First with 7,288 fans at the Coast Coliseum on December 17, 2021 [2] and then a sell-out crowd of 8,646 on December 30, 2021. [3]
The new team began play in the 2022–23 FPHL season. On April 27, 2022, the Sea Wolves announced that winningest FPHL head coach Phil Esposito would coach the team for their inaugural season. [4] Following a 2–9–2 start to the season, Esposito was fired on November 28, 2022, and team COO Joe Pace Jr. became the head coach and general manager of the Sea Wolves. [5] The Sea Wolves finished their first season with a record of 17–35–4 and missed the playoffs.
On March 1, 2024, the Sea Wolves changed their name for one night to the Biloxi Bone Crushers. [6]
On June 3, 2024, the Sea Wolves announced that Ray Tremblay would be the team's fourth head coach, replacing Dustin Skinner. [7]
Regular season | Playoffs | |||||||||||||
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Season | GP | W | L | OTL | Pts [lower-alpha 1] | Pct | GF | GA | PIM | Finish | Head coach | Quarterfinals | Semifinals | Finals |
2022–23 | 56 | 17 | 35 | 4 | 51 | .304 | 199 | 304 | 1324 | 5th - Continental Div. 8th - Overall | Phil Esposito [lower-alpha 2] Joe Pace Jr | Did not qualify | ||
2023–24 | 56 | 21 | 32 | 3 | 61 | .363 | 199 | 265 | 1412 | 4th - Continental Div. 8th - Overall | Joe Pace Jr Dustin Skinner [lower-alpha 3] | L, Columbus, 2-0 | N/A |
The Mississippi Sea Wolves were a professional hockey team based in Biloxi, Mississippi, and play in the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. The Sea Wolves were members of the ECHL.
Mississippi Coast Coliseum is an 11,500-seat reserved seating, 15,000 festival seating, multi-purpose arena in Biloxi, Mississippi. It was built in 1977. It hosted the WCW Beach Blast in 1993 and the Sun Belt Conference men's basketball tournament in 1992 and 1993. The Metro Conference men's basketball tournaments were contested there in 1990 and 1994. In addition, the rematch between legendary boxing former world heavyweight champion Larry Holmes and his fellow former world heavyweight champion Mike Weaver was held at the Coast Coliseum on November 17, 2000; Holmes winning by sixth-round technical knockout.
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