Phil Esposito named Sea Wolves head coach
They’re calling it ‘the comeback of the pack,’ as the Mississippi Sea Wolves get ready to bring a permanent hockey team back to the Coast for the first time in almost a decade.
This afternoon, the Sea Wolves introduced Phil Esposito to serve as their head coach and general manager starting in the 2022-23 season of the Federal Prospects Hockey League.
Already the winningest coach in FPHL history, Esposito won the league championship with Danbury in 2013, one of his four finals appearances in six seasons in the league.
He also had many stops as a player starting in 1991 including two seasons right down the road with the Mobile Mystics, who played against the old Sea Wolves as rival members of the ECHL.
Esposito was on-hand for the December 30th Biloxi Pro Hockey exhibition game in front of an FPHL record crowd of more than 8,600 at the Coast Coliseum, serving as a first-hand reminder as to what kind of sleeping giant the South Mississippi hockey fan base is truly is. “My brand of hockey is – one is to have a skilled team who can play, but also who can play tough and we don’t get pushed around in our own building and we go and we kind of set the tone of what’s going on here and those are the type of players that I always have. And the atmosphere here on December 30th that we had for really two teams that weren’t even from here and that many people came out and supported, and the passion that the fans had that night was unbelievable, so I can just imagine what it’s going to be like when they have their own team to back here. So, when 9,000 people are in that building there supporting their own team now, it’s going to be even more over the top.”
As an expansion team, Esposito’s first order of business is compiling a roster of about 20 players, starting with an expansion draft when the season ends next month.
Today, the Sea Wolves also announced their jerseys, featuring road whites and home blues with inspiration from the New York Rangers and Montreal Canadians as well as the alternate reds, throwing it back to the 1996 Sea Wolves as a retro uniform option.
