Fayetteville Marksmen

The Fayetteville Marksmen are a professional minor league ice hockey team based in Fayetteville, North Carolina, U.S. They currently play in the Southern Professional Hockey League (SPHL). They play their home games in the Cumberland County Crown Coliseum.

The team, originally known as the Cape Fear Fireantz, began play in the Atlantic Coast Hockey League in the 2002–2003 season. After the league's collapse they joined the South East Hockey League for the 2003–2004 season, and joined what would become the SPHL in 2005. Since their inception they won the 2007 SPHL championship and have made a number of playoff appearances. The team would be known as the Fayetteville FireAntz from 2004 to 2017 when they were renamed the Marksmen



ACHL and SEHL years
The team, then known as the Cape Fear Fireantz, joined the fledgling Atlantic Coast Hockey League for the 2002–2003 season. Their first coach was Shawn Ulrich. After the season David Waronker announced he was withdrawing his four teams from the unstable league to form the World Hockey Association 2. The Fireantz and other remaining ACHL teams formed the South East Hockey League. They played the SEHL for the 2003–2004 season, with Scott Rex serving as coach.



SPHL
In 2004 teams from the SEHL and WHA2 joined together to form the league now known as the Southern Professional Hockey League. The Fireantz joined the new league, changing their name to "Fayetteville FireAntz", abandoning the reference to the nearby Cape Fear River. Derek Booth took over as head coach in 2004. After two seasons behind the bench, coach Derek Booth left in 2006 to coach the Bloomington Prairie Thunder of the United Hockey League.

In the 2006–2007 season, under the guidance of head coach John Marks, the FireAntz advanced to the finals of the league's post-season playoffs for the first time in team history. The first two games of the best-of-five final series were won by Fayetteville on the FireAntz' home ice, before the series returned to Jacksonville, Florida, where the Jacksonville Barracudas won Game 3 of the series by a 3-2 score. On April 18, 2007 the FireAntz won the fourth game of the series by a score of 5-3 to win the SPHL President's Cup. It was the first championship for the FireAntz, and Fayetteville's first professional sports championship in 51 years. John Marks resigned after the team's championship run to take the head coach position with the Pensacola Ice Pilots of the ECHL. Shortly after Marks' resignation the FireAntz announced that former Florida Seals coach, Tommy Stewart, had been hired to coach the team for the 2007–2008 season.

Tommy Stewart was let go after the 2010–2011 season and was soon replaced by Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees' assistant coach, Sean Gillam. Gillam would only last partway through the season; on Feb 17, 2012, the FireAntz replaced him with Todd Bidner.

Fayetteville Marksmen
On February 13, 2017, Jeffrey M. Longo was hired as the general manager. Later in the 2016–17 season, Longo and local entrepreneur Chuck Norris purchased the FireAntz from the seven-person ownership group, Cape Fear Pro Hockey. At the end of the season, the new owners changed the name of the FireAntz to the Fayetteville Marksmen. The change reflects the city of Fayetteville's relationship with the local United States Army post, Fort Bragg, as well as the native Carolina red fox.