The Carolina Hurricanes have spent decades working their way into the hearts of some of the most rabid college basketball fans you’ll ever encounter, from the perspective of having moved to the Raleigh, North Carolina, area from Hartford, Connecticut, in 1997. Today, it doesn’t matter that half of the teams on Tobacco Road wear shades of blue — for the past 8 years, summer has started with everyone pulling on Hurricanes red, black, and white to cheer on the Canes in the playoffs.
Here, though, hockey fandom is a little bit different. We tailgate for the better part of gameday in sweltering heat or below freezing temperatures, cooking full-blown meals on grills safely transported in pickup truck beds loaded down with tents, foldable rocking chairs, 20-foot flagpoles, DJ-level speaker systems, and everything necessary for a makeshift parking-lot hockey rink to keep the kids entertained.
Among the most unique characteristics of Carolina Hurricanes Nation is the family culture that surrounds the team – from the parking-lot tailgates to the locker room post-game sessions and player highlight reels. From grieving painful losses to welcoming new babies, the unofficial team motto “We are family” has extended beyond the men in the locker room or even the organizational payroll to the fans who love to root for them.
The story is almost too good for a movie. The coaching staff is filled with veterans of the team’s last Stanley Cup appearance and win in 2006 who have raised their own families in Raleigh. Thousands of fans pulled out 20-plus-year-old jerseys, shirts, and hats to wear proudly or to pass down to a new generation of fans. During this playoff run, families and friends gathered in restaurants, homes, public streets, and parks across the state to cheer for one team. Among them was a young priest in the Diocese of Raleigh, who sees a powerful witness of virtue in the excitement wrought by the Canes’ quest for the cup.
From basketball fan to hockey fan
Father John De Guzman is the 30-year-old priest who currently serves as administrator of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina — some 80-plus miles northeast of the Hurricanes’ home base in Raleigh. Despite growing up in Raleigh, Father De Guzman’s family members, like many North Carolina families, are basketball fans who didn’t follow hockey.
Shortly before his ordination, he attended his first NHL hockey game during the Canes’ 2022 playoff run that saw them eliminated by the New York Rangers in the second round. Still, that experience made a lasting impression on Father De Guzman, who has never forgotten “the electrifying environment in the then-PNC arena and how the cheers were so contagious and the energy was outrageously high.” He was hooked on hockey, specifically the Carolina Hurricanes.
His first priestly assignment was in one of the largest parishes in the Raleigh area, St. Michael’s in Cary, which he credits with exposing him “even more to the life of being a hockey fan,” thanks to the amazing Hurricanes fans, players, and staff who were parishioners there. “Learning how to be a priest in that environment,” he says, “you can’t help but become a fan!”
Perseverance: The heart of a champion
Reflecting on this month’s historic playoff run, Father De Guzman echoed the sentiments of many fans whose steadfast belief in the Canes reflects the perseverance of a team that has made it to the playoffs every year since former Hurricanes captain Rod Brind’amour took over as head coach. Brind’amour, who has been part of 102 of the team’s 104 playoff wins since moving to North Carolina, is only the fourth man to captain and coach the same NHL team to Stanley Cup championships. Known as a player for being the hardest working member of the team and maintaining his reputation as first-in and last-out of the gym even when he shifted from player to coach, fans like Father De Guzman notice the trickle-down effect that kind of leadership has on a team — and a fan base. This week proved that kind of perseverance “is the heart of a champion,” Father De Guzman said.
In fact, as he points out, the Gospel of Luke tells us, “By your perseverance, you will secure your life.” So while Hurricanes players, cheered on by the notably loudest fans in the league, have been persevering for 20 years to return Lord Stanley’s giant silver goblet to the Old North State, there is a deeper reminder in their success.
“Perseverance, being a virtue,” said Father De Guzman, “is first and foremost a choice; an intentional decision to keep going even when everything around you is pointing towards a decision to stop or to quit. That’s the heart of the Christian life, I think. We’re not perfect, and we’re never going to be. Compared to the Devil, we’re underdogs. We’re weak. We’re going to go through trials and challenges that in many ways will make it seem like all hope is loss. But the Lord reminds us: PERSEVERE because that’s how you secure your life.”
For the Carolina Hurricanes, that perseverance brought a Stanley Cup championship. Father De Guzman reminds us, “We, despite our years of hardships, must persevere because at the end of ours, we're promised Eternal Life.”
The value of sport
Athletic competition and rivalry are nothing new to the Raleigh area, despite being relative newcomers to the National Hockey League. This is college basketball country after all, which makes the Carolina Hurricanes so much more magical. The 2026 Stanley Cup playoffs were the most watched in NHL history, despite competing with the NBA playoffs and the World Cup being held on American soil.
Why are so many of us drawn to sports?
“There’s a palpable and powerful atmosphere that unites people, regardless of who they are and where they’ve come from, that is found in sports,” Father De Guzman said.
Even in his own ministry as a parish priest, he has found “there is something about sports that breaks down barriers, looks past the differences, and clings to what unites the people involved.”
That “unity in what truly brings us together as humans” is something we need more of in society today, Father De Guzman explained. When communities come together to cheer on the hometown team, whether it’s high school football, professional hockey, or the World Cup, the priest adds, “It develops a level of honor and confidence in solidifying a level of our identity, based on where we come from [that] creates a dynamic … of being proud of your home.”
So, if you happen to make your way to downtown Raleigh for our little hometown parade this weekend to celebrate a hockey victory 20 years in the making, keep your eyes peeled for Father De Guzman’s collar or my family, three generations deep with a dozen Gen Alpha kiddos wearing their parents’ Hurricanes memorabilia from before they were born. And of course, even if you’re a Las Vegas Golden Knights fan, we’ll lift a glass of nice cold Cheerwine or sweet tea to bless your hearts after a hard-fought series.
Brittany Makely is Zeale News’ lifestyle editor and, as an N.C. State alumna and Canes fan, never dons the hues of either “blue school” in the Raleigh area.