The phrase “Hockey doesn’t belong in the south” is one that most Hurricanes fans have heard in almost every possible way since the franchise moved to a much warmer climate in 1997. But in just nine short years, they placed North Carolina on the map as one of the “hotbeds of hockey” by winning the Stanley Cup in the face of some of hockey’s purest fans. And, in doing so, they rallied hundreds of thousands of fans in the whirlwind of their success while creating a generation of new hockey fans, most of which barely knew how the sport worked. 

“Well, my first clear memory as a child was Justin Williams breaking away for the empty netter,” says Caleb Shaw, a Canes fan based in Apex, NC. 

Imagine reaching your life’s greatest achievement long before you could even legally get behind the wheel of a car. Now imagine the memory of said achievement slowly fading from your memory as the years pass, and replace those happy thoughts with some of the darkest moments of your life. For many Carolina Hurricanes fans, this was the case.

“Hockey can be loved anywhere and North Carolina is one of those places where the lack of attendance was perceived as “not caring” when honestly, we were just hurting,” Brandyn McMahan, a lifelong Hurricanes’ fan based in Virginia, Shared.

It was a hurt felt deep, as the new media darlings in Raleigh, North Carolina became ground zero for relocation rumors. Trying to find their place in the esteemed culture of hockey fandom, the expectant Hurricanes fanbase replaced excitement with anxiety as year in and year out, the only hurricanes garnering media attention and packing out arenas were the yearly storms coming in off the coast. 

And while carrying the name of the state’s biggest threat, both franchise and fan came to terms with their surroundings as they settled into North Carolina and their new reality.

Fayetteville, NC wasn’t exactly a hockey town… the bug bit me as a kid, and I started playing roller hockey – more often than not, by myself on the carport at the house I grew up in. I still remember my first stick was a broom and my first puck was a roll of electrical tape. My first net was a cat litter bucket.” 

But be it a decade of poor decisions on or off the ice, the trials of growing up, or the constant onslaught of catastrophic storms that threatened their very existence, the Hurricanes, their fans, and their home learned a thing or two about getting through it… and also growing from it. 

Growing alongside a team can create a bond that not only solidifies a statehood of fandom between a franchise and its people, but also helps those fans in ways unseen, and when they least expect it.

Reddit user AnActualCanesFan shared about the moment he knew he was with the Hurricanes for life. “My parents got divorced, so I latched on to the team instead of listening to the arguments in the background, and lo and behold they won the cup that year. So a tough year as a kid was made easier because my team won… from then on I was hooked.”

And in those times, that connection grows to be more than just a sport and spectator. It spans generations, state lines and familial ties. Caleb Shaw shared how, while out of state for college, “the Canes were my connection to back home and the way my family and I stayed in touch… I remember almost tearing up when we made the playoffs this past season. It had been 10 years since we last made it and I finally started to become really hooked on the emotions behind it.” 

So after reaching what some thought to be the apex of their potential only nine years in, and almost losing it all a decade later, the Hurricanes have come out the other side a renewed franchise, a more (arguably) mature franchise, a team finally with an identity. We’re all a bunch of jerks both on and off the ice. The team boasts a die-hard fan base of southern folk who are on the outside of the glass looking to the ice for entertainment and have found more in the faint reflection before them when they needed it most. 

McMahan puts it perfectly when he says, “I guess the gist of it is, without hockey and my love for the Hurricanes... I wouldn’t really be me. I wouldn’t be the half-Mexican kid from the south who hung in there with a team in perpetual failure. Hockey might be the most radiant part about my identity. And on a lot of days, it’s the most important.