CAROLINA HURRICANES HOCKEY, RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA
Several hours before the Edmonton Oilers were set to play the Carolina Hurricanes for the 2006 Stanley Cup championship, the only ice in sight was in coolers, surrounding beverages. On a toasty June evening, fans wearing Hurricanes red handed bug-eyed Canadian visitors dressed in Oilers blue heaping plates of North Carolina-style pulled pork, hot off the grill, and bowls of boiled coastal shrimp.
Kids played street hockey in the parking lots surrounding the RBC Center. Rock bands blared. Tents with big-screen TVs were set up to accommodate those without tickets so that they could still see the game and share the experience.
When the Hurricanes arrived in 1997, the team had to build popularity from the ground up in this Southern city, where natives believed that ice was fit only for cooling their bourbon and branch water, not for playing a sport. Basketball, football, and NASCAR racing were the traditions. But most sports do have one thing in common: the tailgate. And ’Canes fans have brought a thriving tailgate scene to the National Hockey League.
Canadians who made the trek to Raleigh for the series, which ended with a Hurricanes victory in Game Seven, had never seen tailgating quite like this. For one thing, it’s too cold in Edmonton, Alberta, for most of the hockey season for a lot of parking lot activity. (Edmonton has an average March high temperature of 34°F versus around 60°F in Raleigh, for example.) Many parking lots ban alcohol. And Edmonton’s sports fans have more of a tradition of gathering in bars or at group events to watch games.
At ’Canes games, it’s like a big block party feast that oozes warm Southern hospitality to all guests from the frozen North. At least, it does until the puck drops. And it looks like that Stanley Cup would hold an awful lot of fried chicken.