Training camp had ended about 30 minutes earlier when Alex Wall sat inside Crown Coliseum and considered what the Fayetteville Marksmen are really selling.
The obvious answer was all around him: professional hockey, cold ice, hard boards and a new season close enough to feel. But Wall, entering his seventh season with the organization and fourth full season as team president, has learned that the game is only the beginning.
“Hockey is the excuse,” he said. “Hockey is the excuse we get to bring people together.”
That philosophy will meet its largest early test Oct. 17, when the Marksmen host the Roanoke Rail Yard Dawgs at 6 p.m. for opening night. Fayetteville begins the season the previous evening in Roanoke, then returns home with less than 24 hours to recover, adjust and introduce a new team to its city.
Opening night brings familiar theater, but this year carries a sharper question: Can the Marksmen pair the show with a serious postseason run?
Wall believes the organization is ready to demand both.
Fayetteville finished last season 23-28-5-2, placed 10th in the SPHL and missed the playoffs. The Marksmen closed with a 6-0 victory over Macon, but the season reinforced a distinction Wall said the organization can no longer ignore. Attendance and entertainment matter. So does winning.
For years, the club concentrated on creating an experience that could welcome people who did not know a power play from a penalty kill. Videos, music, theme nights, lighting and intermission entertainment helped turn a hockey game into a full evening out. That approach grew the audience, but Wall said success off the ice could not become a substitute for progress on it.
“We don’t put on hockey games; we put on performances and shows,” he said. “Our goal is to entertain fans.”
The challenge, he acknowledged, is that an organization can focus so heavily on presentation that it drifts from the reason the building exists on game night. As the season-ticket base grew and casual guests became committed fans, their expectations changed. They still wanted Star Wars nights, family memories and music. They also wanted playoff hockey.
That realization shaped the hiring of Garrett Rutledge as head coach and director of hockey operations. Rutledge arrived after leading the Athens Rock Lobsters to a 44-11-1 record and a division title in the Federal Prospects Hockey League. He also worked with the Ontario Hockey League’s Saginaw Spirit during its 2024 Memorial Cup championship season.
For Wall, the hire was about “creating a new culture,” establishing a new identity and raising the standard of Marksmen hockey. He expects a team that plays hard and physically every shift, regardless of the score.
“That’s what the city deserves,” Wall said.
The ambition is no longer merely to qualify for the postseason. The Marksmen have reached the playoffs in most seasons under their current identity but have not advanced beyond the first round. Fayetteville’s last professional hockey championship came in 2007, when the FireAntz won the President’s Cup.
The 2026-27 season leads into the 20th anniversary of that title. Wall said the organization is developing promotions involving members of the championship team, connecting the building’s past with the club trying to create its own history.
“It’s time to start chasing the Cup again,” he said. “Making the playoffs isn’t the goal anymore. Now the goal is to make a run.”
His operating principle is simpler than predicting every turn: make the next best decision, then stack good decisions together.
That method has guided an organization Wall says has grown exponentially, most visibly in attendance but also in ways that never reach the standings. Players have advanced to higher levels. Staff members have learned the business, developed relationships in Fayetteville, and moved into larger opportunities. Each departure creates work, but it can also serve as evidence that the organization is developing people, not merely using them.
The same thinking shapes the club’s relationship with the city.
Fayetteville presents a distinct challenge for any institution trying to build tradition. Military families may arrive, become devoted fans, and receive orders elsewhere within two or three years. Players also come and go. In a community accustomed to transition, the Marksmen must offer continuity without assuming longevity.
Wall said the answer begins with being present. The team works with schools, Fort Bragg, businesses, nonprofits, and organizations that welcome new residents. The objective is for someone to learn that professional hockey belongs to Fayetteville, whether that person has lived here one day or 50 years.
At the Crown, that invitation starts before a fan reaches a seat. Wall views the experience as beginning when the ticket is purchased and continuing until the guest returns home. Parking, communication, music, promotions, and hospitality all influence whether a first visit becomes a family tradition.
Themed nights may place guests inside the worlds of Star Wars, Nickelodeon or Disney, but Wall said the larger promise is that children, parents, longtime hockey followers, and newcomers can enjoy the same evening for different reasons.
The hardest step is persuading someone to attend once. After that, he trusts the product and the people already in the stands.
Marksmen regulars often recognize first-time guests, explain unfamiliar rules and welcome them into the rhythm of the sport. That fan-to-fan generosity matters in a market where many people have never watched hockey live.
“It truly is a family type of community,” Wall said.
Perhaps no event demonstrates the club’s reach more clearly than its School Day Game. In 2023, the program filled the 9,500-seat Crown Coliseum and set an SPHL single-game attendance record. Wall counts the experience among his proudest accomplishments because thousands of children encountered hockey and, for some, professional sports for the first time.
The fox mascot, Marky Marksmen, provides another thread of continuity. Players may move quickly through a developmental league, but the mascot remains a recognizable face in schools and at community events. The fox, team name and military-rooted identity make the brand visible; Wall insists the people and programs behind them make it meaningful.
That work is becoming more active. Through Mini Marksmen, players introduce children to hockey. The organization is also developing a school-based street hockey tour with community partners built around movement, healthy living, teamwork and collaboration.
For Wall, those programs connect the demands of his job with the life waiting at home. He has three boys, all 5 and under. They sometimes step onto the ice or fist-bump players as the team heads out, seeing the organization not as a spreadsheet or schedule but as childhood memory taking shape.
Balancing the franchise and family is difficult, especially near opening night, when every day brings a different problem and never enough hours. Wall said the faces in the building keep the work centered.
“When you look around and you watch families get closer and you watch young kids have these core memories that they grow up with, there’s no better feeling than that,” he said.
Five years from now, Wall hopes the record books include a championship. Yet his larger measure is stability, a seamless association between the Marksmen and Fayetteville, strengthened through local businesses, nonprofits, military relationships and families who consider a night at the Crown part of living here.
The club does not possess the marketing budget of larger organizations. Wall said it has fought through challenging periods to reach a measure of sustainability. Its future still depends on fans becoming ambassadors, telling neighbors about a good night, and returning until attendance becomes attachment.
When the puck drops Oct. 17, the scoreboard will provide the easiest measurement. Rutledge’s team will begin showing whether a harder standard has taken root. The crowd will decide whether the energy feels worth carrying home.
But the deeper season will unfold away from the final score: in a child meeting Marky at school, a soldier discovering a hometown team, a first-time fan learning the rules from a stranger and a family building a memory together.
Hockey may be the excuse. Belonging is the goal.

(Photos courtesy of the Fayetteville Marksmen)