The South Carolina Stingrays have been a member of the ECHL since the 1993-94 season. Multiple NHL 50-goal scorer Rick Vaive was the team’s first head coach, serving for five years. The Stingrays have won the Kelly Cup championship three times to date, most recently in 2008-09. The team plays in the 10,537 seat North Charleston Coliseum in North Charleston, South Carolina. Currently, the Stingrays are affiliated with the Boston Bruins of the NHL and the Providence Bruins of the American Hockey League. The team has retired three jersey numbers.
Number 12 is retired in honor of the late Mark Bavis. Mark played just three years of professional hockey between 1993-94 and 1995-96 totaling 87 regular season games and 17 playoff games with South Carolina. Mark was selected in the ninth round of the 1989 NHL Entry Draft by the New York Rangers, 181st overall. He chose to play four years at Boston University between 1989-90 and 1992-93.
Bavis was working as a scout for the Los Angeles Kings when he was aboard Flight 175 which struck the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001. Mark died along with fellow Kings scout Garnet ‘Ace’ Bailey . The Stingrays retired his jersey number just prior to the start of the 2001-02 ECHL season.
The number 14 is retired by Carolina in honor of David Seitz. David played nearly 500 regular season games and nearly 60 playoff games with the Stingrays between 1996-97 and 2003-04. He had a very respectable 587 regular season and 73 playoff points during that time. His last season of professional hockey was played in 2004-05 with the Lubbock Cotton Kings of the Central Hockey League. Interspersed in his years with the Stingrays were 17 games with the AHL’s Rochester Americans and seven games with the IHL’s Chicago Wolves.
Seitz helped the Stingrays win two of their three Kelly Cup titles. In 1996-97, the Louisiana IceGators fell to Carolina four games to one. In 2000-01, it was another five-game series with the Trenton Titans as the casualties. David was inducted into the ECHL Hall of Fame in 2012.
Number 24 is retired in honor of Brett Marietti. Brett is the only Canadian of the three players and played junior hockey with the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League before turning professional. With the exception of 1993-94 when he played in the AHL with the Rochester Americans, Marietti played his entire professional hockey career with the Stingrays.
Between 1994-95 and 2002-03, Brett played in 550 regular season games, contributed 481 points and spent 1,127 minutes in the penalty area. He played 69 playoff games with the club and had 62 points. His shirt number was retired in 2003 and he served one season as assistant coach with the club in 2003-04.