While UNC and Duke play annually in football for the victory bell, the UNC Tar Heels and the NC State Wolf Pack share a similar tradition on the ice. Every year, the Tar Heels and the Wolfpack play each other in ice hockey at an NHL-sized venue, competing for the Governor’s Cup.
On November 21st, the UNC Tar Heels club ice hockey team traveled to Raleigh to play in this contest for their final and most important game of the semester. NC State reigned as the defending Governor’s Cup champions going into the game, but the Tar Heels sought to take the title for themselves.
In their previous game against NC State this season, UNC had a very successful performance, beating the wolf Pack 5-3. This time, they sought to do the same inside PNC arena, home of the Carolina Hurricanes, and playing in such a high end venue makes for a very enjoyable and exciting game day for everyone involved.
The head coach for the Tar Heels club ice hockey team Jeff Volkman, stated his thoughts on the annual game in an interview. “It’s obviously the best venue in North Carolina, so it’s a really special place to coach and watch the players have a lot of fun,” he said.
The Captain of the team, Henry Foster, shared in his coach’s sentiments. “I mean, it’s a really wonderful atmosphere,” he said. “[The] fans show out and it’s loud every time something happens. It just keeps the whole game energized, there’s never a shift of, and it’s just really fun to play in.”
As a whole, the crowd for this game is significantly larger than the crowd at a typical division two club ice hockey game, and the production value for the game’s production as a whole is at a much larger scale than what the two teams are used to. With that comes some nerves that the players have to face during the game, especially considering how they’re playing for the right to be governor’s cup champions for that year.
Still Henry Foster claims that “when the puck drops, you just kinda focus on the game, and it all goes away.”
While the game was intended to be a neutral arena between the two teams, PNC Arena is located just 3.5 miles west of the NC State campus, and the university’s basketball team plays out of the arena as well. As such, the game’s attendance primarily consisted of Wolf Pack fans.
Nevertheless, plenty of Heels fans made their voices heard inside the arena, despite being located in Wolf Pack Territory. Even the UNC band made the drive from chapel hill to the game to show support for the ice hockey team.
“Having the band here is a tradition we started early on. they took a 2 year break so it was great to see them back in and built a great environment.”
Coach jeff volkman
Those UNC fans that took the trip to Raleigh did not leave disappointed, as they got to see an absolutely fantastic game of hockey. The Tar Heels scored the first goal of the game in the first period. In the second period, they would add two more goals to their score and would lead the game 3 to 0 by the end of that period.
In the early minutes of the third period, NC State would get on the board to make it a 3-1 game. Only a few minutes later, they would score again to make it a one goal difference, which increased the intensity of the game for the rest of the period.
In the end, however, the Wolf Pack were unable to score the game-tying goal, and UNC would seal the game away with an empty net goal late in the third period. The Heels beat the Pack 4 to 2 and earned the right to hoist the governor’s cup.
In the six years that the governor’s cup has been played, this year was the first time that UNC won the game and, in turn, the cup itself.
Obviously, coach Volkman was very proud of his squad for their performance in this game.. “The program is progressing just the way we want it to,” he said.
Captain Henry Foster Shared similar sentiments. “[The] Boys were all clicking. We’ve got four lines rolling solid, we just showed it out there,” he said. “It was a great game and a great atmosphere. Glad we got the win.”
The UNC ice hockey team will return from winter break next semester, and they will host the Virginia Tech Hookies at the Triangle Sportsplex on January 14th.