For those who grew up around the sport of hockey, skating on an outdoor pond is supposed to invoke feelings of a simpler time. For a lot of people who play in the National Hockey League today, it’s where they grew to love the game and decided to make it their profession. Even for those who weren’t quite as talented at hockey (that would include me), outdoor hockey still conjures up feelings of childlike joy and memories of when they were younger.
It’s those positive feelings the NHL capitalized on when they announced they’d make outdoor hockey a fixture of the regular season, and since 2008, the NHL has done exactly that, holding at least one outdoor game annually.
Last Saturday, the NHL announced one of its Stadium Series games would head down south next season. But instead of opting for Miami or Atlanta, the NHL decided to come to Raleigh and have the Carolina Hurricanes play in Carter-Finley Stadium, home of the NC State Wolfpack football team.
It’s the culmination of years of toil for the Hurricanes, who spent the majority of the 2010s between that mediocre tier of non-playoff teams and the cellar of the NHL standings. With the Hurricanes not being competitive, fans struggled to find reasons to buy tickets to a game they knew the Canes would lose, and so average attendance dipped to some of the worst in the league, bottoming out at just under 12,000 a game in the 2016-17 season. After the Canes made a surprising run to the Eastern Conference Finals in the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs, fans came back in droves, and although attendance was still lagging, Raleigh proved it could support a professional hockey team, so long as it was competitive.
This year, the Canes are back in the thick of the playoff race, proving last year wasn’t a fluke. Rising attendance wasn’t a fluke either, as PNC Arena is currently drawing over 16,000 per game this season. The gesture by the NHL to gift the Carolina Hurricanes was one done in good will, as a reward for persevering when they were dead in the water. There’s no doubt that fans would come out to fill Carter-Finley and provide fans of the NHL an experience they could only get in North Carolina. But if that is the case, then why stop there? Why not aim for something higher?
This January, the NHL decided to test nature and the properties of water by holding the Winter Classic, the crown jewel of regular season NHL games, in Dallas, Texas. The hometown Dallas Stars played gracious hosts, as hockey fans were treated to Texas barbecue, bull rides and country music. Oh yeah, and the Stars beat the Nashville Predators in a sold-out Cotton Bowl 4-2. Dallas, a city that could be described as a microcosm of every southern stereotype imaginable, was smitten with hockey.
The NHL, and hockey fans across the U.S. and Canada, knew the Winter Classic in Dallas was a success. But just how much of a success was it? The hockey game not only sold out the Cotton Bowl, but it drew over 85,000 fans, good for the second-most attended hockey game in NHL history. What the NHL should have drawn from this was that the southern United States is an untapped market for one-off hockey events like this. Instead, the NHL announced that next year’s Winter Classic would take place in Minnesota, unofficially the official 11th province of Canada.
I can’t blame the NHL for sticking with its core fanbase, but after sticking its toes into Winter Classic hockey in Dallas and succeeding, wouldn’t the right move be to double down and dive headfirst into more opportunities to grow the game in the American south?
Instead, the NHL decided to give Raleigh the Stadium Series, a consolation prize for markets that want that sweet outdoor hockey but don’t have the connections to make it to the big time.
Make no mistake, I’m by no means ungrateful for the opportunity to feel like a kid again and enjoy a hockey game at Carter-Finley. But while the Stadium Series games are seen as just another regular-season game on the schedule, the Winter Classic is filled with the pomp and glamour of an all-star game. Even though the Canes may boost their ticket sales for a game with the Stadium Series coming, the Winter Classic would bring the eyes of the league toward our neck of the woods, and just like Dallas did this year, Raleigh could showcase what makes it so unique among NHL markets and prove to NHL fans that the city isn’t the backwater it’s perceived to be.
A Winter Classic game would boost ticket sales just like a Stadium Series game would, but it would also bring national television coverage and that opportunity to change the average NHL fan’s perception of hockey in North Carolina. But without that exposure, how can Raleigh prove itself as a hockey town on the national stage?
Last year, the Hurricanes surprised everyone by beating the Washington Capitals and New York Islanders in the playoffs, but they still fell short of winning their second Stanley Cup in franchise history. This was a great year for Carolina, and a historic year given the fruitlessness of its recent history. But after finally gaining back the fanbase they’d spent a decade trying to bring back to PNC Arena’s seats, the Hurricanes couldn’t afford to rest on their laurels. They wanted more, which is why the Canes are trying their hardest to make consecutive playoff appearances for the first time since 2002.
The NHL gave Raleigh a Stadium Series game, a testament to the league’s trust in Carolina to host one of its marquee games, due to the recent resurgence in team success and fan interest. But Raleigh can’t, in celebrating this achievement, become complacent and lose sight of what must be its ultimate goal. In essence, the city must embody the spirit of its team this season, and they must strive for something greater.
Carolina Hurricanes center Sebastian Aho looks for a way to the goal during the preseason game versus the Washington Capitals on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2019 in PNC Arena. Aho scored two goals against the Capitals. The Canes lost to the Caps 4-3.
