NHL’s Stadium Series outdoor game adds to Triangle’s contributions to hockey history
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Hockeytown, USA
On Feb. 18, the Carolina Hurricanes will host an NHL outdoor hockey game for the first time at N.C. State’s Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh. Whether you’re a hockey fan or not, don’t miss out on the festivities surrounding the Carolina Hurricanes outdoor game.
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Like this outdoor game at Carter-Finley Stadium, some of the Carolina Hurricanes’ moments in the NHL spotlight were long-promised and late-delivered by the league. But delivered is a good word, because every chance that the Triangle has had to shine, it has grasped.
Four times before, the NHL has brought its signature events to Raleigh. Twice, the Hurricanes earned that on the ice, hosting two games of the 2002 Stanley Cup finals and four in 2006, including the climactic and victorious Game 7. And twice, the NHL has awarded its traveling road shows to what is now PNC Arena: the 2004 NHL Draft and the 2011 All-Star Game.
Each of those occupies an important place in Hurricanes history, as the Stadium Series game certainly will, and at least one of them has its own spot in hockey history.
“I always think back to the 2006 Stanley Cup final,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told The News & Observer in 2019. “When has there ever been a major-league event where everybody stood for the entire game?”
2002 Stanley Cup Final
It certainly wasn’t anything anyone expected, but the Hurricanes’ run through the playoffs brought the championship series to Raleigh tied 1-1 after Ron Francis’ goal gave the Hurricanes an overtime win over the Detroit Red Wings in Game 1. The atmosphere was electric for Game 3, and it’s not a stretch to say the Stanley Cup hung in the balance as that game stretched into overtime ... and double overtime ... and finally triple overtime before Red Wings veteran Igor Larionov finally ended it.
Those old legs would have felt a lot more tired after a triple-overtime loss, while the brokenhearted Hurricanes struggled to regain their edge. The Red Wings won Game 4, then clinched the Cup in Game 5 to deny Raleigh a return visit. But the fervor for the Hurricanes that arose almost out of nowhere in those three months built a foundation and set a tone that lives on today.
2004 NHL Draft
There was some trepidation over logistics, with teams and draftees spread from Raleigh to RTP to Durham thanks to the area’s lack of convention-caliber hotels at the time, but it went off without a hitch. Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin went 1-2, their future stardom not in question, and the Hurricanes made the day’s biggest trade, moving up to take Andrew Ladd fourth overall.
The draft is as much a convention as an event, and the Hurricanes and the Triangle proved they could pull it off, even without a downtown arena or (at the time) modern convention center. While the 2002 finals certainly got everyone’s attention, this was the first time the NHL as a whole was in Raleigh at once.
2006 Stanley Cup Final
Unlike 2002, the Hurricanes and their fans went storming into the 2006 playoffs a fully formed entity, the parking lots full of tents and smoking grills hours before every game, the decibel level inside a point of civic pride. With home-ice advantage this time, the series opened in Raleigh, and the Hurricanes won Game 1 thanks to a colossal goaltending blunder and a Rod Brind’Amour goal. They had a chance to close out the series in Game 5, with a power play in overtime, but Cory Stillman’s turnover led to a short-handed goal and sent the series back to Edmonton, where the Hurricanes lost again.
That set the stage for Game 7, when Cam Ward’s save on Fernando Pisani late in the third period sealed the win and saw Bettman hand the Cup to Brind’Amour to raise. The party went on long into the night, and into the following days; even visiting and dejected Oilers fans got into the fun on Glenwood Ave. (A counterpoint to the sour Buffalo Sabres fans who smashed giveaway pint glasses in the parking lots during the conference finals.) And yes, everyone stood for all of Game 7, from before puck drop until the players finally left the ice, where bottles of champagne awaited them.
2011 All-Star Game
It was a long time coming. Bettman promised the Hurricanes the right to host an All-Star Game within five years of the successful completion of their “NHL All-Star Crusade” ticket campaign in the spring of 2001, a clever marketing gambit. The prospective date kept getting pushed back amid concerns over the Triangle’s ability to host such a large event but by 2011, the convention center was up and running as well as hotels like the downtown Marriott and the Umstead, all of which played important host roles.
The whole weekend was a tremendous success, one of the most fondly remembered All-Star Games of recent years. The captains drafted their own teams, there was a line hundreds of feet long to get Jeff Skinner’s autograph and Eric Staal and Cam Ward played starring roles. As much as the team’s success on the ice (the playoff drought had begun, but no one knew it yet, and the Hurricanes were only two years removed from another deep postseason run), that All-Star Game removed all the doubts about the Triangle’s ability to support NHL hockey.
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This story was originally published February 13, 2023 at 6:00 AM with the headline "NHL’s Stadium Series outdoor game adds to Triangle’s contributions to hockey history."
