RALEIGH - Nothing could be finer than being home in Carolina.
After a false start with the World League of American Football's Raleigh-Durham Skyhawks, big-time professional sports returned to the Triangle Friday night as the Carolina Hurricanes, the former nomads of the National Hockey League, played their very first home game in the new $158 million Entertainment and Sports Arena.
And even though the arena, which hosts both the Hurricanes and the N.C. State men's basketball program, arrived over budget, past deadline, and with a 4-2 loss to the New Jersey Devils, there's still no place like home.
"A couple of times during that I-40 drive you wondered if the end would ever come," said Hurricanes center Jeff O'Neill about the hour-plus commute from the team's temporary home in Greensboro back to Raleigh. "But you have to give the guys credit; we saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and we stuck together as a team. Since I came into the league they have been talking about the Whalers moving and for me this is the end result. I've finally got a home."
The Hurricanes, who arrived in North Carolina after the Hartford Whalers franchise was sold to Gale Force Holdings during the 1996-97 season, played their home games in the Greensboro Coliseum, while living and practicing in Raleigh, some 80 miles away.
Added to the relative lack of fan interest-the Canes ranked last in the NHL in attendance both seasons in Greensboro-the defending Southeast Division champions suffered through a difficult two seasons.
But Friday night, before a raucous sellout crowd of 18,730, all that might have started to change.
"I think it marks what is the beginning of a new, successful era for the Hurricanes in Raleigh, in North Carolina," NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told The News & Observer of Raleigh.
The arena itself, where the opening was as much of an event as the game itself, met with rave reviews from many fans, except perhaps for those caught in the heavy traffic outside.
Once inside, they realized that it's tough to find a bad seat in the arena, which to a fan's eye is fully finished but which still has a large amount of behind-the-scenes work remaining in the press and locker room areas.
The seats are built at a steep upward angle, much like the Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill, but unlike the UNC facility, the seats are pushed much closer to the action. For hockey at least, there literally isn't a bad seat in the house.
While it doesn't seem likely that the new hockey craze will unseat college basketball as the sport of the Triangle, with a new arena and a devoted, if still small, fan base, the Hurricanes may be well on to becoming the area's newest queen.
And for one night at least, they were king.
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