Carolinian Identity
The weirdest thing about the hurricanes is that they don’t feel like a North Carolina team. Stormy the mascot, which is a hog, was the first step towards gets a more NC feel. Hogs are local to NC, but are not a part of their identity. To their credit, the Canes have been pushing hard to give the Canes more of a NC feel. The homegrown series have been an excellent way to connect the team to the state and all that makes it Carolina. However outside of that, the game feels like a foreign experience, a cold weather sport, Canadians, Finns, and Northerners representing the home ice, and an experience that can be improved upon.
Let’s start with the Storm Warning Siren. Why is it only used at the beginning of the periods? Its an excellent identity piece for the south and should be used when scoring goals as well. If Columbus can fire a Cannon, we can make Goal scoring much more annoying and noisy for the visiting team. Its also time to change songs too. While the “Wooo” song is entertaining, it doesn’t do much for NC identity. There are a multitude of songs of all genres which speak of or originate from NC. Perhaps it’s time to for the Canes to prove that they are proud to represent the Carolinas in the NHL?
The Great Outdoors
Another idea I saw bouncing around the twittersphere was the idea of an annual outdoor game between the Canes and the Preds. There are definitely enough stadiums and ballparks around both Raleigh and Nashville to accommodate an annual game played in each state intermittently. And perhaps it only gets cold enough to play this sort of game a small segment of the year which makes it a logistical nightmare. But we placed a man on the moon, we can figure this out too.