Hurricanes vs. Flyers Rivalry

Lore & Background

North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the United States Constitution on November 21, 1789. The state was one of the Thirteen Colonies and was established as a royal colony in 1729. The Halifax Resolves, adopted on April 12, 1776, was the first formal call for independence from Great Britain among the American Colonies during the American Revolution.

In Their Own Story

The ice in the rafters was already forming by the third period. You could see it in the way the Flyers' winger carried the puck up the left wing, head down, shoulders squared, the crowd behind him a single roaring wave of red and black. The Hurricanes' defenseman, a kid who had grown up watching tape of the 1975 Finals on a crackling television in a Hartford living room, met him at the blue line with a full extension. The stick-on-stick crack echoed up into the upper deck where a thousand fans held their breath. The puck squirted loose, a scramble in front of the net, and for three seconds the whole arena was just breath and ice and the smell of rubber. Then the Hurricanes' forward buried it, the net rippled, and the south side of the building detonated. The Flyers' winger skated back to his bench, jaw set, and said nothing. He didn't need to. They'd do it again in two weeks, in Carolina, under different lights, and the kid who grew up on tape would be waiting at the blue line with the same extension, the same hunger, the same quiet promise that this time the story ended differently.

Reader's Guide

The Hurricanes play in the Raleigh area, which is part of the Research Triangle region. The Research Triangle, with an estimated population of 2,368,947 in 2023, is the second-most populous combined metropolitan area in the state and is home to the largest research park in the United States, Research Triangle Park.

Did You Know?

• North Carolina is known as 'First in Flight' because Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully piloted the world's first controlled, sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft at Kitty Hawk on December 17, 190
• Mount Mitchell in North Carolina, at 6,684 ft (2,037 m), is the highest point in North America east of the Black Hills.
• The Charlotte metropolitan area is the largest banking center in the nation after New York City.