Mississippi Sea Wolves
The Mississippi Sea Wolves are a professional hockey team based in Biloxi, Mississippi, and play in the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. The Sea Wolves are members of the FPHL. They are former members of the ECHL. The Sea Wolves were founded in 1996 and had considerable success over their 10 seasons in the ECHL. They reached the playoffs in five of their first seven years and a league championship in 1999, when they defeated the Richmond Renegades in a best of seven series to claim the Kelly Cup. Damages from Hurricane Katrina to the Mississippi Coast Coliseum forced  the team to suspend operations for the 2005–06 and 2006–07 seasons under the ECHL's hardship provisions. Hurricane Katrina resulted in extensive damage to the team’s home arena, including flood damage to team offices and locker rooms as well as the ice-making equipment and two Zambonis. During the 2006–07 ECHL All-Star Game, the league officially confirmed the Sea Wolves would return in 2007–08. On March 30, 2009, the Sea Wolves announced that the organization would be suspending operations again for the 2009–10 season, but a little more than a month later the team's management announced that  professional hockey would continue to be played on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in the form of the Mississippi Surge in the Southern Professional Hockey League. The Surge played at the Coast Coliseum from the 2009–10 season through 2013–14. In 2021, the Federal Prospects Hockey League hosted three neutral site games in Biloxi and an ownership group announced a new Sea Wolves team would begin playing in the 2022–23 season. On April 27th, 2022, the Sea Wolves announced their head coach for the upcoming season will be Phil Esposito.