Anisa Khalifa: In many ways ice hockey was the sport of the 90s. Its appeal was clear. The game was fast-paced. High scoring. And violent. The greatest player who ever lived, Wayne Gretzky, was in his prime. And a whole generation of teenagers was being raised on the Mighty Ducks movies.
(SOUNDBITE FROM THE MIGHTY DUCKS)
The Mighty Ducks: Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack...
Anisa Khalifa: But it had one major problem. Geography. In order to grow, the sport had to move into places where there was very little ice鈥�
Joe Ovies: There was a lot of pushback. What is this northern sport doing down here, it's never going to work here. It's not native to us and all these other things, not seeing the bigger picture of where things were going.
Anisa Khalifa: I鈥檓 Anisa Khalifa. This is the Broadside, where we tell stories from our home in North Carolina at the crossroads of the South. This week, how hockey made a new home for itself in the sunshine states.
And it鈥檚 just going to be very casual. We鈥檙e just having a conversation. It might make it in. It might not鈥� I recently sat down with my older brother Ibraheem to talk about an odd footnote from our childhood. Like me, he鈥檚 lived most of his life in the South.
Ibraheem Khalifa: I鈥檝e been Raleigh for 25 years and been in North Carolina for about 27.
Anisa Khalifa: But like a lot of Southerners, we鈥檙e not from here originally鈥kay. So tell me about when we came to North Carolina in 1998 and the hockey situation. Were you into hockey back then when we moved here?
Ibraheem Khalifa: It鈥檚 so funny because growing up in Canada hockey was the big thing. Everybody was into hockey. I remember as a kid seeing trading cards. There were Wayne Gretzky cards鈥�
Anisa Khalifa: This goes on for a while. But yeah, Ibraheem was into hockey. And when we moved to Greensboro, North Carolina from Toronto the whole thing was a bit of a shock. For many reasons. But one thing 鈥� to his surprise, especially 鈥� remained the same. There was hockey. Because the year before we relocated from the North, so did an NHL team. The once struggling Hartford Whalers became the Carolina Hurricanes. And while they were waiting for their new home to be built in Raleigh, they actually played right down the road from ours....
So they played in the Greensboro Coliseum and they also had a temporary space in Raleigh that they used to play in in the beginning.
Ibraheem Khalifa: What a wild bet. Like let鈥檚 move an NHL team.
Anisa Khalifa: What a wild bet. It鈥檚 something we don鈥檛 really question today. Southern teams are some of the most successful franchises in the NHL. 3 of the last 5 Stanley Cup champions were from the South. And a lot of them have almost fanatical followings. The Canes have sold out every home game in their 19,000 seat arena for over three years.
Anisa Khalifa: But my brother is totally right. On its face, it doesn鈥檛 make a lot of sense. 鈥奡o we're sitting here in Durham, North Carolina. It's February and it was 72 degrees yesterday. Why the heck do we even have hockey here?
Cory Lavalette: 鈥奍 mean, I think this is an overall a vision by the NHL commissioner, Gary Bettman, to spread hockey into what are you know, quote, nontraditional markets.
Anisa Khalifa: Cory Lavalette is the senior editor for North State Journal. It鈥檚 a statewide paper in North Carolina.
Cory Lavalette: 鈥夿ut at the same time, I've continued covering the Carolina Hurricanes, which is kind of my passion project, uh, and I've been 鈥奷oing that for, uh, professionally and as a hobby, I guess, for almost 20 years.
Anisa Khalifa: Corey says teams like the Hurricanes have their roots in the 1990s, when the appropriately named Gary Bettman staked the future of hockey in North America on the Sunbelt.
Cory Lavalette: And what it鈥檚 all about is the league is starting to see the population is growing in those areas.
Anisa Khalifa: To Bettman, those were tens of millions of potential new fans for the sport. And he wasn鈥檛 about to let a little thing like 70 degree weather in February get in the way.
Cory Lavalette: The NHL sees this opportunity and says, you know we don鈥檛 play hockey outside, we play it inside. We just need to figure out how to do it right.
Anisa Khalifa: So, the league flooded the US with expansion teams and relocated several franchises to new cities鈥�
Cory Lavalette: Phoenix, Raleigh, Sunrise, Florida, Tampa, Florida, Dallas, Atlanta, San Jose, Los Angeles.
Anisa Khalifa: Pretty much any place that doesn't have six months of winter.
Cory Lavalette: Just over and over again鈥�
Anisa Khalifa: Now, this may sound risky today, but this was an even bigger gamble back then. Because the league had tried to establish pro hockey in warm weather locations before鈥� with mixed results.
(SOUNDBITE FROM 1978 ATLANTA FLAMES COMMERCIAL)
Anisa Khalifa: In 1972, the NHL placed a team in Atlanta called the Flames. But after 8 poorly attended seasons, they moved to Calgary. This left only minor league hockey in the South. And so for over a decade the sport remained a curiosity at best鈥�
Cory Lavalette: 鈥奩ou had teams like the Raleigh Ice Caps who played in Dorton Arena. Um, which, if you think, and apparently from people I've spoke to, it would fill up with 鈥奻og because of the鈥�
Anisa Khalifa: Amazing!
Cory Lavalette: Yeah, because of the, you know, the heat outside.
Anisa Khalifa: And the action on the ice wasn鈥檛 exactly a great advertisement for the sport鈥�
Cory Lavalette: 鈥奍t's almost more slap shot-like, a little bit gimmicky. We're going to go to a fight and a hockey game is going to break out a little bit, you know, um, you know, that kind of hockey from the, you know, 1980s, where a lot of it was fans kind of frothing at the mouth to see two guys on skates, throw their gloves off and fight.
(SOUNDBITE FROM FILM SLAP SHOT)
Unidentified Speaker: Everybody on their feet screaming Kill, Kill, Kill! This is hockey!
鈥�Anisa Khalifa: So, when the Carolina Hurricanes came here, were people, I mean, were the locals skeptical of this? Like, did they respond well?
Cory Lavalette: I think there's probably a moment of excitement of, look what we're getting, and then a moment of, what are we getting? 鈥奍 don't know who these people are. What is this all about? I've watched it on TV, but I don't even know how offsides works. You know, what is icing? What, what are these rules?
Anisa Khalifa: But the NHL and many of these new Southern teams like the Hurricanes learned from some of the mistakes of the Flames. In the 90s, that meant educating new fans about the sport and embracing a long-term strategy of fanbase building. It also didn鈥檛 hurt that a lot of these teams eventually played really well.
Corey Lavalette: 鈥�Kind of winning solves everything, right? You see Dallas, you see Florida, you know, uh, Tampa had, um, some good teams. Dallas wins a Stanley cup over the Sabres. And that's the most important thing is. Okay. Now, not only are we seeing hockey in these markets, but we're seeing successful hockey. We鈥檙e seeing all of these cities that nobody would consider a quote hockey town. And now all of a sudden they are.
Anisa Khalifa: But you can鈥檛 win every time. And Cory says there鈥檚 been one other major development driving the long-term success of the sport here鈥� and this is something that I heard over and over again while reporting this story.
Corey Lavalette: 鈥�Outside of having a winning team, I think having youth hockey that makes kids love the game is maybe the most important thing as far as making this a sustainable thing in any market.
Anisa Khalifa: Yep. North Carolina, of all places, is a hotbed for youth hockey. Coming up after a break, we find out how the NHL built the next generation of hockey fans 鈥� almost completely from scratch 鈥� in the South.
On a recent Wednesday night, Broadside editor Jerad Walker visited the Orange County Sportsplex. It鈥檚 located in the small town of Hillsborough, about 30 miles west of where the Hurricanes play their home games. Jerad lives here 鈥� but this was his first visit. And what he found inside blew his mind鈥�
Jerad Walker: This place is just brimming with kids. Dozens and dozens. Hell, hundreds of kids on skates.
Anisa Khalifa: This was a learn-to-skate session at the facility鈥檚 ice rink. But just a few minutes later, the crowd dispersed and about 50 players from the Carolina Thunder Hockey Club took the ice. Coach Kevin Kamenski ran them through their paces. Sprinting, slaloming, shooting. Some of them 鈥� boys and girls, all under the age of ten 鈥� looked like naturals. But everyone was enthusiastic. Maybe even a little too enthusiastic鈥�
Jerad Walker: Coach, coach, can you explain what just happened?
Unidentified coach: Yeah, he had a wiggly tooth. And it was loose and he pulled it out. And I think he鈥檚 going to go home and tell his mom he lost it on the ice. Playing hockey鈥� [laughter]
Shane Willis: You 鈥妅now, I laugh all the time when people talk, even when I played here, you know, hockey's not really going to work in the South. Well, you know, they can't say that now.
Anisa Khalifa: This is Shane Willis. He's a former Carolina Hurricanes player. And when he first arrived in the South 25 years ago, he might have been a little skeptical himself.
Shane Willis: When the Hurricanes selected me in the draft I really didn't know where Raleigh was.
Anisa Khalifa: But when it came time to hang up his skates, after a career that spanned two decades and took him to four countries, he chose to return and make it his home.
Why did you decide to settle in North Carolina, where the sport is so young?Shane Willis: 鈥�Couple different reasons. One, I married a southern girl who was not going to entertain the winters in Canada. Uh, it was a, it was a pretty easy decision. But I mean the other part is I love this area. Seeing the culture here and how much people want to grow.
Anisa Khalifa: Shane is now the Director of Youth Hockey and Community Outreach for the Hurricanes. His job involves spreading hockey鈥檚 footprint across the state. Which is much harder to do here than where he learned to play the game.
Shane Willis: I grew up on a lake town in Alberta. I could just walk down the stairs and skate for miles.There was a hockey rink the size of a football field cleared off down by the beach. And we'd go down there and skate until we lost all our pucks. Or you could go to a local basketball court that's now turned into a hockey rink with boards and everything in Canada for free. All you do is get there with your skates and put them on and go. Our kids here don't have that ability.
Anisa Khalifa: But lack of available ice is only part of the problem. Hockey equipment is expensive, and quality coaching is hard to find. So since 2016, Shane鈥檚 been working to bring down those barriers through the Hurricanes First Goal Program. For a one time, heavily subsidized fee of a little over $300, kids get a full set of hockey gear and access to six training sessions.
Shane Willis: We put them in head-to-toe equipment and we get to see them score their first goal when they're on the ice. And we get to provide that smile, the enjoyment of the sport that I grew up playing in Canada and so many of these players grew up and learn from great coaches in the area.
Anisa Khalifa: NHL-sponsored programs like this one, paired with local learn-to-skate initiatives like the one in Hillsborough, have had an especially powerful impact in the South. USA Hockey, which keeps meticulous stats on youth hockey participation, divides registered youth players into a dozen or so administrative districts. The Southeastern region now has the highest total number 鈥� 61,000 kids. And 8,000 of those players are from North Carolina. In fact, the state now ranks 21st in the country. That would have been unthinkable 30 years ago. So why spend all of this money and time to get thousands of Southern children on the ice?
Shane Willis: For every hockey player you create, you create three fans because you got to think, the one who's playing hockey loves the sport. So that boy or girl has to bring dad and a sibling to a game or mom and dad to a game. I see parents all the time and I talked to a guy last year on the concourse. He goes yepl. You said once my kid was hooked on the sport, I'd become a season ticket member. You were right.
Anisa Khalifa: Now, a cynic might say 鈥淥h, this is just another marketing gimmick to sell tickets for the NHL.鈥� But this actually goes much deeper.
Joe Ovies: If you're going to survive in anything, you have to make sure the generation coming up loves your product. But if you really want to get the future generation to lock in, you have to be able to play the sport.
Anisa Khalifa: Joe Ovies would know. He鈥檚 one half of the podcasting duo of Ovies & Giglio and pretty much sports talk radio royalty in North Carolina. Joe remembers how the Hurricanes struggled to connect with the community when they first arrived.
Joe Ovies: There's a term in the business called papering the town and that is when you just give away a bunch of free tickets.
Anisa Khalifa: They did a lot of that. But when spectators showed up, things were鈥� a little off.
Joe Ovies: For example, the Carolina Hurricanes when they first got to this market, they brought out Richard Petty. NASCAR driver. And they had a Richard Petty ice machine, a Zamboni, So they try to like NASCARify it. Just because I live in North Carolina doesn鈥檛 mean I have an affinity for NASCAR. So you got to sell your game. Don't try to shoehorn a culture that doesn't exist. Sell your culture.
Anisa Khalifa: Like a lot of folks, Joe enjoyed the team for what it was. An occasional winner that brought the promise of big games like the Stanley Cup Finals to Raleigh. But a few years ago, that relationship fundamentally changed when his son picked up a toy hockey stick.
Joe Ovies: And this interest in hockey continued but 鈥� but the issue with hockey It's intimidating to get in. To get instruction, to get the right equipment is very expensive.The barrier for entry is pretty intimidating to get in. Especially if you did not grow up with it like me. You know, to get equipment, to get instruction, is very expensive.
Anisa Khalifa: But Joe eventually found his way to the First Goal program. Where his son Jacob went from falling down every time he tried to skate, to zipping around on the ice. His kid was hooked on the sport and the local team.
Joe Ovies: So the hurricanes and the NHL understood the barrier for entry And they eased it they eased that friction with the First Goal program, understanding that if you're going to develop your game If you are going to make fans for a lifetime not only do you get them as a spectator, but you also have to help them understand the game at a level That'll create an even deeper connection with what they're watching and playing the sport, at whatever level, beer league to youth, is that way you build a connection to the hockey team, the professional hockey team that is playing. Cause you'll get a better understanding of the game that you're watching, right?
Anisa Khalifa: And now Joe, a Southerner who did not grow up loving this game, who resisted the charms of the sport even though he lives and breathes it professionally, has gone full hockey dad.
Joe Ovies: 鈥�So I'm going to Minneapolis in February for a youth hockey tournament part of the appeal of going to Minneapolis in February isn't because it's gonna be 13 degrees. It's because we have the opportunity to play outdoors.
Anisa Khalifa: Final question. Are you 鈥奱 hockey fan now? Do you have a choice?
Joe Ovies: I mean, yes, I would say I'm, I'm a, I'm a hockey fan and that's developed over time as somebody who did not grow up around hockey. But I will say that one thing that I've appreciated about hockey now at the youth level and finding myself. As a team manager for my son's 13U hockey team is that at the end of the day, I appreciate what hockey has done for my son in developing friendships, you know, I have an introverted kid, and it took him a while to kind of warm up to other people or kind of be himself. And I 鈥奾ave seen my 13 year old really develop this personality and become this person thanks to youth sports. 鈥奆or the NHL, it's not so much about becoming a fan of a particular team. It's really about selling to families and their kids that this is a sport that can really bring something else out of you.
Anisa Khalifa: And that? It鈥檚 not a marketing gimmick. It鈥檚 culture.
This episode of The Broadside was produced by me, Anisa Khalifa, Jerad Walker, and Charlie Shelton-Ormond. It was edited by Jerad Walker. Wilson Sayre is our executive producer. A special shout out this week to my big brother Ibraheem Khalifa for taking a trip down memory lane with me. Fun fact: his first job in the early aughts was actually working at the Hurricanes' merch store, which at the time was called The Eye.
The Broadside is a production of 瓜神app鈥揘orth Carolina Public Radio and is part of the NPR Network. If you have feedback or a story idea, you can email us at broadside@wunc.org. And if you enjoyed the show, leave us a rating, a review, or share it with a friend!
Thanks for listening y'all. We'll be back next week.