The Chesapeake Icebreakers are a defunct minor league

Minor league

Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities. This term is used in North America with regard to several organizations competing in...

 ice hockey

Ice hockey

Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...

 team that played in the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL) from 1997-1999. The Icebreakers were an expansion team

Expansion team

An expansion team is a brand new team in a sports league. The term is most commonly used in reference to the North American major professional sports leagues, but is applied to sports leagues worldwide that use a closed franchise system of league membership. The term comes from the expansion of the...

 that was granted to Upper Marlboro

Upper Marlboro, Maryland

Upper Marlboro is a town in and the county seat of Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. The live-in population of the town core proper was only 648 at the 2000 census, although Greater Upper Marlboro is many times larger....

, Maryland

Maryland

Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

 for the start of the 1997–98 ECHL season

1997–98 ECHL season

The 1997-98 ECHL season was the tenth season of the ECHL. Before the start of the season, the league saw the Knoxville Cherokees move to Florence, SC and welcomed expansion teams in New Orleans, LA and Upper Marlboro, MD...

.

Home games were played at a converted equestrian

Equestrianism

Equestrianism more often known as riding, horseback riding or horse riding refers to the skill of riding, driving, or vaulting with horses...

 facility known as The Show Place Arena

The Show Place Arena

The Show Place Arena is a 5,800-seat multi-purpose arena in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, which is used for sporting events, concerts, boxing and professional wrestling events, consumer shows, trade shows, religious services, graduations and other events...

 in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Despite occasional sellouts and a playoff run, the franchise was plagued by a severe lack of publicity in the community and a near total lack of coverage by area newspapers. The team moved to become the Jackson Bandits

Jackson Bandits

The Jackson Bandits were a minor league professional ice hockey team and member of the East Coast Hockey League . The Bandits played at the Mississippi Coliseum in Jackson, Mississippi between the 1999-2000 and 2002-03 seasons...

after their second season.