OT: Other hockey teams in the Carolinas (Past, present, and future)

[HisIceness]

This is a subject that has somewhat fascinated me over the years and since we're still in the off-season, I thought this would be a good time to bring this up.

So currently there are 3 professional teams in North Carolina. Hurricanes, Checkers, and the Fayetteville FireAntz. But did you guys know that as recently as 2001 there were 5? (Hurricanes, Checkers, Greensboro Generals, Asheville Smoke, and the Fayetteville Force) And in the 80's and 90's Greensboro and Winston-Salem both were icing teams at the same time? I can only imagine the rowdiness and the fights going on both on the ice and in the stands.

Currently South Carolina has two, the South Carolina Stingrays (Charleston) and the Greenville Road Warriors of the ECHL. Unfortunately it seems we'll never see the Columbia Inferno again and the Pee Dee Pride who played in Florence were supposed to become the Myrtle Beach Thunderboltz but it seems that plan has gone out the window as well.

For the future I think Greensboro could become home to an ECHL team again, if this happens I think it would be cool to have them be the Hurricanes ECHL affiliate.

Click to read more...

 

[Blueline Bomber]

Did a paper on the history of hockey in the Carolinas for one of my college classes.

IIRC, the earliest professional hockey team in the Carolinas was the Greensboro Generals starting in the late 1950's

 

[tarheelhockey]

IIRC, the earliest professional hockey team in the Carolinas was the Greensboro Generals starting in the late 1950's

The earliest team was the Charlotte Clippers, who started in January 1956. They were relocated from Baltimore mid-season after their arena burned. A group of Charlotte businessmen/enthusiasts had been working on bringing a hockey team to the new Coliseum (now Bojangles Arena) and seized the opportunity to provide the team a temporary location and make the case for local demand. As it turned out, the games were a huge hit and played to standing-room crowds. That team never went back to Baltimore, became the Checkers a few years later, and was one of the only teams that survived until the SHL folded, killing southern hockey for a generation.

That was the beginning of pro hockey not only in the Carolinas, but also in the entire south.

 

[cptjeff]

There's still a lot of bad blood around the Greensboro Monarchs and the Hurricanes, and there was some political mudslinging and general nastiness around the Generals that really killed the team, and soured most of the members of the ownership group on trying to get a team back. Theoretically Greensboro should get a team again sometime, but there are a lot of old scars and grudges left right now that will probably keep it from happening for a little while.

 

[TheBigKahuna]

The Greensboro Monarchs of the AHL were great for the 1 season they lasted. It was our only chance to see near NHL talent, or future NHL talent. I saw some good players come through, mostly on opponents teams though. But at the time, it was the best pro hockey within reasonable driving distance. The Ice caps were a lot of fun, 5 minutes from home, and very cheap with student ID! Those old ECHL games were pure goonery! I recall Winston, Wheeling and Roanoke Valley being very hard teams for the softer Ice Caps to play against. I don't think Kleinendorst was ever a big fan of having many tough guys on his team. Kleinendorst was a player/coach ala Reggie Dunlop, and was never a fan of the goonery that ran rampant in the ECHL back then.

 

[Guy]

In the mid 90's, the ECHL East Division was all NC and VA teams (Raleigh, Charlotte, Greensboro, Roanoke, Richmond, Hampton Roads). Those games were awesome and nearly every game had that rivalry feel. I know I've mentioned it on here in the threads in the past, but I went to some Richmond/HR games that had just as much fighting in the stands as on the ice, and there was plenty on the ice.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

I met Sean Cowan a few years back and had a few beers with him (he was friends of a relative). I didn't live here during the Ice-caps days, but over a few beers, he was telling me about his time with the Icecaps. The stories (while maybe embellished a bit) were hilarious and some quite brutal. The finger biting incidents we occasionally see/hear about in the NHL are tame in comparison.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Yeah, that old ECHL division was incredible. I'm really not sure which league I have enjoyed more between the NHL and those old ECHL games.

Also germane to this thread is the succession of Winston-Salem teams that kept pro hockey alive in the Carolinas through the 1980s. Even though they've bounced around leagues quite a lot, W-S has had some kind of team for most of the past 40 years.

 

[Mr Whipple]

In the mid 90's, the ECHL East Division was all NC and VA teams (Raleigh, Charlotte, Greensboro, Roanoke, Richmond, Hampton Roads). Those games were awesome and nearly every game had that rivalry feel. I know I've mentioned it on here in the threads in the past, but I went to some Richmond/HR games that had just as much fighting in the stands as on the ice, and there was plenty on the ice.

Yeah, I went to a few Renegades games when I lived in Richmond in the early 90's. Remember seeing one bench clearing brawl in the 3rd. 3v3 the rest of the game, with most of both rosters sent to the dressing rooms.

 

[garnetpalmetto]

I was a hardcore Columbia Inferno fan once upon a time. The rivalries that existed between the Inferno, Checkers, Pride, Grrrowl, Stingrays, and Lynx were awesome - all those cities were a reasonable drive away from each other and it was fun getting to see those barns, especially considering what a dump the Carolina Coliseum was.

 

[Mr America]

I used to love going to the Monarchs ECHL and the AHL season, Generals, and the Twin City Cyclones. I think the Cyclones went away after the 2009 season. This was the last game I went to:


It was great because it was Susan G. Komen night, and they were auctioning off their game worn jersey's immediately after the game So people were going crazy for the torn up and bloody ones

We were sitting right on the glass, directly where they first fight gets going in front of the McDonalds ad on the boards.

 

[CioCio]

The Monarchs are how I got into hockey, I think. Lord knows the Canes are doing their best to quell that with each passing season.

My dad used to take me and while most games registered kinda blankly with me, there definitely had to have been some residual effect. Best memory I have is some blowout (in our favor) where the opposing goalie just boomerang'ed his stick into the stands after something like 14 goals.

 

[GhostofS16*]

There's still a lot of bad blood around the Greensboro Monarchs and the Hurricanes, and there was some political mudslinging and general nastiness around the Generals that really killed the team, and soured most of the members of the ownership group on trying to get a team back. Theoretically Greensboro should get a team again sometime, but there are a lot of old scars and grudges left right now that will probably keep it from happening for a little while.

That was a bit of ago for that to still be relevant. Who in Greensboro wants to own a hockey team? Surely not Steve Tanger...

 

[CioCio]

That was a bit of ago for that to still be relevant. Who in Greensboro wants to own a hockey team? Surely not Steve Tanger...

The way Gboro's residents slaughter most anything that gets proposed, I'd be shocked to see anything materialize again. The Coliseum has a long, storied, and embittered history itself.

 

[wisssh]

My buddy Trevor Senn

1995-96 Richmond Renegades ECHL 57 18 31 49 507

Love the 507 PIM

Played for W-S, Greensboro and South Carolina

 

[tarheelhockey]

My buddy Trevor Senn

1995-96 Richmond Renegades ECHL 57 18 31 49 507

Love the 507 PIM

Played for W-S, Greensboro and South Carolina

I remember him from that season. One of the things that made that league so much fun was guys like him who could somehow score points while picking up huge PIMs. The hate runs strong against guys like that. Hampton Roads and South Carolina had a couple of 'em as I recall.

Always thought that was a great enforcer name too. Might as well have renamed Richmond's penalty box the Senn bin.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Some other favorite stat lines from that division:

Scott Gruhl, Richmond, 1994-95
49GP, 71 points, 288 PIM

Victor Gervais, Hampton Roads, 1996-97
52GP, 88 points, 170 PIM

Andy Bezeau, South Carolina, 1993-94
36GP, 20 points, 352 PIM

Phil Berger, Greensboro, 1991-92
60 GP, 130 points, 158 PIM

Sylvain Mayer, Raleigh, 1991-92
6GP, 0 points, 104 PIM

 

[Guy]

My buddy Trevor Senn

1995-96 Richmond Renegades ECHL 57 18 31 49 507

Love the 507 PIM

Played for W-S, Greensboro and South Carolina

Never thought I'd see that name again, or at least on here. He was probably my favorite Renegade during that time period, dude got in a fight nearly every game, and often got into more than one. I lived on the NC/VA border and it was almost the same distance exactly from home to Richmond and home to Raleigh. Since this was before the 64 bypass around Knightdale and going through there sucked, we always went to Renegades games instead of Icecaps games.

 

[DaveG]

oh Andy Bezeau

seeing a goalie that's legitimately insane (Gilles Gratton, Ilya Bryzgalov) isn't THAT much of a stretch. You have to be a bit nuts to play the position, in fact I'd say a down to earth guy like Cam is the exception rather then the norm.

But Bezeau, my god, you'd think the guy was on something the way he played. And to think, this is a guy that made Chad frigin LaRose look big. 5'9 my ass.

for reference:

 

[tarheelhockey]

Was anyone here active on the old ECHL usenet group? I think it was alt.sports.hockey.echl or something like that.

Seems like there were 2-3 really active users from each team who were a tight community and a big part of the early online-hockey-fan presence in this region. I posted game summaries for the Checkers as a hobby (which meant getting box scores and game narratives online before they were available anywhere else... now that I think of it for the first time, that was kind of neat). I remember there was a guy named Scott who was a big IceCaps fan. A woman from Roanoke whose name slips my mind, and a good guy from Greensboro who kept us all up to date with the ongoing drama that lead from the Monarchs to the Hurricanes to the death of hockey in that city. That was a great little group of dedicated fans.

Man, I sound like an old guy right now

 

[No Fun Shogun]

Well, they're not professional (or even varsity), but a number of colleges have club hockey teams in the ACHA:

Division 2 - Duke, UNC, NC State
Division 3 - Appalachian State, UNC-Charlotte, NC State, East Carolina, NC - Wilmington

Maybe more, but the ACHA pages on Wikipedia aren't exactly the most up-to-date.

 

[DaveG]

Fairly sure that Wake has a team as well (not 100%) in ACHA Div II.

I was trying to get a small group starting up a team up at Mars Hill the one semester I spent there but I got the hell out of dodge instead of sticking around that school, though I still worked on trying to get things off the ground even after I left. We had some interest from UNC-A as well if we were able to get off the ground since that would help both schools in terms of ice time, etc. Some of the guys from the Asheville Smoke were a big help in trying to get things started but when it was announced that Asheville was going to be one of the first cities granted a team in the SPHL that killed all momentum that we had tried to build.

 

[HisIceness]

I was a hardcore Columbia Inferno fan once upon a time. The rivalries that existed between the Inferno, Checkers, Pride, Grrrowl, Stingrays, and Lynx were awesome - all those cities were a reasonable drive away from each other and it was fun getting to see those barns, especially considering what a dump the Carolina Coliseum was.

I'm sure you remember the 2005 playoffs very well

 

[vwg*]

South Carolina Stingrays are where it's at... 3 time Kelly Cup champs. Man, I used to love the Stingrays but with the ECHL becoming mostly a developmental league in the last decade or so, it has ruined most of the entertainment value. SO. MUCH. player turnover. Different line ups most nights, having 50+ players suit up for you over the course of the season. It's hard to follow a league where an opening day roster is almost completely different than the end of season/playoff roster. It wouldn't be so bad if the ECHL prices were 50% of what they are now, but as of now the ECHL for entertainment is overpriced.

I'm actually surprised the Stingrays have stayed around so long. The past few seasons it looks like they barely average 2000 fans a game, although I think attendance improved this year after the NCC renovations. I guess the Zucker family is committed to keeping hockey here for the long haul.

 

[cptjeff]

That was a bit of ago for that to still be relevant. Who in Greensboro wants to own a hockey team? Surely not Steve Tanger...

Last time around it was a coalition of local business owners (one of who I've played on a team with, and he's still very pissed over the whole ordeal). You don't have to huge money for an ECHL team.

Oh, and the Coliseum was a central element in the politics and nastiness. It wasn't so much that they were at fault, it was more an issue of some other actors talking about the Coliseum's role out of context to drum up popular and political outrage... Let's just say it was a nasty mess.

But rumors still fly around every couple of years, right along with the ones about the icehouse getting a second sheet.