Going Outside: Learning More About The Canes 2023 Outdoor Game

RALEIGH, NC. -It's happening, for real this time.
Friday night National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman
announced that the Carolina Hurricanes will play a Stadium Series game at Carter-Finley Stadium in February of 2023
.

Undoubtedly an exciting news drop for fans of the Canes, the update is also welcomed after the game was initially announced in February of 2020. Originally slated to be played during the 2020-21 season, the COVID-19 pandemic altered those plans, with the team announcing in the winter of 2020 that the team would not be hosting it as planned. The team then once again announced in the summer of 2021 that the game would not be taking place during the current 2021-22 season.
Perhaps no one is more excited about the All-Star weekend update though than team General Manager Don Waddell, who has been a part of the effort to bring an outdoor game to North Carolina since 2018.
"The conversation first came up a couple weeks after Tom Dundon bought the team," the team's GM began with. "He brought the idea to me and asked me if we'd ever tried to get the outdoor game and at that point we hadn't. We talked about it, but we'd never made a pitch for it. So, we made it clear we were interested in hosting a game and thought economically that it would work for everybody. We wanted to showcase what we have going here in Raleigh and what a better place to do it than Carter-Finley Stadium, right across the street from our home at PNC Arena."
Home to the North Carolina State University football team, Carter-Finley Stadium was the only option ever considered for the event per Waddell.
"We reached out to NC State Athletic Director Boo Corrigan and once it became looking like there was some potential in them considering hosting it, we were 100% on board with moving forward. That made it easy for us, knowing that they were so willing to support this event. It's exciting for them because it's a national television game being played at Carter-Finley Stadium, home of the NC State Wolfpack. It's great recognition for them on a national front. It'll get more people talking about them, Raleigh, the Triangle, not just the Hurricanes."
As mentioned, the game was previously slotted to be played during the 2020-21 season, however, the team took the option to defer due to the ongoing effects of the global pandemic. Given all of the postponed games and seemingly ever-changing nature of health and safety protocols over the last five months, the decision to punt, pun intended, feels like the right call.
"A lot goes into an outdoor game from a planning standpoint and we decided it would be better to just bump it back another year," Waddell continued. "For our market and the things we want to do with an outdoor game, we dodged a bullet."
Already aware of how much work goes into landing an event of this scale, the long-time front office veteran is thrilled at what a Stadium Series game will bring in terms of growth for the sport to Wake County and beyond.
"You're going to expose the game of hockey to a lot of people that may not be familiar with the game. People like big events. Having a big event here, at a stadium with 55,000+ seats, you're going to have your hockey fans, but you're going to get a lot of people that haven't experienced it, too. I think this is where the win-win comes in for all of us."
Something that has both the league and the Hurricanes franchise excited about the game being played at Carter-Finley is that the environment will be close-knit and compact. While 55,000 remains a great deal for an attendance ballpark, the architecture of the stadium has both parties feeling like this event will produce one of the best environments at any outdoor game played.
"There's not going to be a bad seat. I've spent a lot of time over there. If you're on the sidelines, 20 feet behind you are the seats. There's not a big runway. It's going to allow people to be a lot closer to the game than the other venues."
While the announcement solidifies a timeframe for the contest, there's still plenty of work to be done and questions to be answered.
One of the largest priorities is building a manifest for the stadium that needs to be converted from its grass landscape to an enamoring production centered around a frozen surface.
"The NHL will start having boots on the ground and we'll start having lots of meetings. 'Scaling the house' is probably the biggest thing to do. Deciding what ticket prices will be, where the cutoffs will be, what the sightlines will be. We're going to have a new television partner doing the game as well, so they'll have to come out and make sure the camera spots are all set as well. That will take months."
Before the above proces is complete, more details about the extravaganza will be revealed, such as an exact date, puck drop time, jerseys and an opponent.
"Jerseys are being worked on. I don't know a timetable just yet, but they've been in the works. We had a pretty good idea of what we were going to do last time. As far as an opponent, the 2022-2023 regular season schedule is already being worked on, so I think within the next 60 days we'll have an idea of who we will be playing. There are different opportunities to make a splash here. When you announce the game, when tickets go on sale, when you announce the opponent, and all of those things are going to be great. We're excited to fill the stadium. It's league-driven. They've asked us who might be the best and we've shared a couple of our ideas laughs]. The league is very smart in doing this. They've done this so many times. It'll be a good rivalry of ours for this certain event."
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[Canes To Host Stadium Series Game at Carter-Finley In February 2023
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