With fans’ return to PNC, Hurricanes feel surge of excitement against Red Wings

Standing for the final minute with the Carolina Hurricanes holding a three-goal lead, followed by the first Storm Surge in almost 13 months, the fans got what they wanted. Not just back in the building to see it with their own eyes, but just about everything they missed while they were gone.

And as far as the Storm Surge goes, something everyone missed. The team’s trademark victory celebration had been on hiatus since last season shut down. There was no audience for it in the Toronto playoff bubble on “home ice” nor back on actual home ice when this season began.

When Nino Niederreiter’s empty-netter secured a 5-2 win over the Detroit Wings with still more than five minutes to go, that left plenty of time for anticipation to build. The reward was a relatively vanilla surge by the Hurricanes’ outre standards but one attuned to the moment, their sticks raised at center ice to the scoreboard to salute Deepika Malhotra, a Rex Hospital respiratory therapist.

“It was fun,” said first-year Hurricanes forward Jesper Fast, who had only been on the other side of the surge in the past. “We watched it before, so enjoying to be a part of it.”

The 2,924 fans — a sellout, technically speaking — represented the new state maximum of 15 percent of PNC’s largest recorded hockey crowd, the standing-room-only 19,495 who saw the Hurricanes win Game 4 of their sweep of the New York Islanders in 2019. The Hurricanes have sold nearly every ticket for the remaining seven home games this month, so that number is likely to come up again. And again.

As normal PNC crowds go, it isn’t much. It is a big jump, though, from the 25 plus families and media who were able to witness the first eight home games in person. The officials no doubt appreciated the additional feedback.

A crowd like that can cheer and ooh and aah and boo at the appropriate moments — and it was a restless bunch during the Hurricanes’ rough start — but it can’t generate the kind of volume that’s felt in the chest as much as the ears. That will have to wait. Still, while the numbers may have recalled those days of yore in Greensboro or the infamous friends-and-family Halloween game in October 2000 when the announced attendance was 7,016, the enthusiasm did not.

If you closed your eyes and didn’t know any better, you might not even realize the building not only wasn’t close to full, but was actually closer to empty.

“Almost like a playoff game compared to what we were playing with before,” Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal said. “It was great. They were loud. There was definitely some new life in the building.”

While the return of fans in any significant number is something the Hurricanes have been mulling and considering since the pandemic began, with arena vice president Larry Perkins one of the country’s foremost experts in the area of arena safety and security, Thursday came quickly. Dave Olsen, PNC’s general manager, told the arena authority Wednesday that he expected eight weeks to prepare for the return of fans and ended up with eight days.

Their return was one of the topics of conversation between Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski and former Hurricanes captain Justin Williams on Krzyzewski’s XM Radio show that aired Thursday. The Duke coach knew the significance of the day. Just like college basketball, hockey isn’t the same without fans.

“This is the first night where the Caniacs come back,” Krzyzewski said during his pre-UNC media availability Thursday. “(Williams) was talking about how hockey had been in a bubble and how their players are so excited.”

The last time PNC Arena had more than a handful of people in the stands for a hockey game, the Hurricanes lost to the Colorado Avalanche on Feb. 28, 2020. That was the last game before a six-game road trip that lasted five games — or 11 months, depending on perspective.

The Hurricanes were staying in the Detroit hotel recently vacated by the NBA’s Utah Jazz when Jazz star tested positive for what at that time was just called the coronavirus and the world as we knew it started tumbling on every axis. A year to the day after The News & Observer’s banner headline announced the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in North Carolina, and all the doors everywhere started to close, PNC threw open the doors to hockey fans again.

They weren’t the only ones happy they were in the building.

“When you’re playing without fans, it’s a little boring,” Hurricanes forward Andrei Svechnikov said. “When we saw them today, we kind of got that energy.”

They all got what they wanted. A win. A Storm Surge. More than enough to cheer.