Former Augusta Lynx head coach John Marks has been named the head coach for the newly created Dayton Gems of the International Hockey League. The Gems were placed in Dayton, Ohio, by the IHL after the ECHL’s Dayton Bombers announced they would sit out the 2009-10 season.

Marks, who coached for two months in Augusta last fall before the Lynx folded, became an assistant coach with the Florida Everblades of the ECHL for the second half of the 2008-09 season. The winningest coach in ECHL history led the Fayetteville FireAntz to a Southern Professional Hockey League championship in 2007, but has yet to complete a season since thanks to the folding of the Pensacola Ice Pilots in 2008 and the Lynx last year.