What’s The Word? Long Live the Carolina Thunderbirds

For those of you that have been around me for more than five minutes, you know my insatiable passion for all things ice hockey. Given the current NHL lockout (insert expletives here), I thought I would dabble in a bit of local hockey nostalgia.

Coincidentally, it happens to be the 30^th anniversary of the Carolina Thunderbirds 1982-1983 Atlantic Coast Hockey League championship season. Who were the Carolina Thunderbirds? If you’ve asked this question, you probably did not live in Winston-Salem from 1981 through 1991. A time when flowing locks of hockey hair (a.k.a the mullet), big fluffy moustaches and blood stains were as much a part of a hockey player’s uniform as were his skates. Want a quick course in minor league hockey from this era? Get your hands on George Roy Hill’s irreverent, vulgar and hilariously realistic 1977 movie, Slapshot. Starring Paul Newman and based on a true story, this movie is generally regarded as one of the best sports movies of all-time. It even has a little known, direct tie in with the Carolina Thunderbirds that I will mention in a bit. Prior to pressing play you’ll want to evacuate all children under the age of 17 from earshot. Then you can spend two hours laughing until you pee yourself - just like Nick Brophy!

The Carolina Thunderbirds were not Winston-Salem’s first pro hockey team. That honor belongs to the Winston-Salem Polar Twins (1973-1977) of the Southern Hockey League. Yep, the Southern Hockey League. Even the name reeks of shoddy ice and a cold, hard punch in face. My father, a recent Canadian immigrant, was an off-ice official for the Twins and I vaguely remember going to games with him. Bundled up in hat and coat, squirming in the red wooden seats of the old Memorial Coliseum, I remember being mesmerized by the whole experience. Of course I was equally excited by the antics of the team’s two polar bear mascots as I was by the action on the ice, but hey I was five.

The Polar Twins played teams with names like the Greensboro Generals, Roanoke Valley Rebels and the (I’m not making this up) Macon (clears throat) Whoopee. The Rebels used to skate out for the pre-game warm-up waving a huge Confederate flag and making the occasional obscene gesture to the seething, jeering crowds of the home team. Cue Skynyrd’s Saturday Night Special, stuff a few mini bottles of Rebel Yell in your pocket and get ready for some southern-fried hockey. This was not an era of family entertainment. It was an era of cold, smoke-filled arenas with short-tempered players and patrons. Being five years old and going from Mr. Rogers Neighborhood to this screaming, board-checking, fist-flying, goal-scoring frenzy was true sensory overload. I remember HATING the visiting teams and their players. The games felt personal…even to a child.

I was seven when the team folded in the winter of 1977. I remember going to the rink with my dad to watch a practice and getting the news. It’s difficult to pinpoint memories from that age, but the drive home that night was something that has always stayed with me. Lying on the back seat watching tall, moonlit trees pass by with a distinct sense of fear and melancholy. My first real taste of  “all good things must come to an end”? Maybe so.

It wasn’t until the late fall of 1981 that hockey made its return. You have to remember that back then, especially in the southeastern United States, hockey wasn’t on television. Unless of course, there was a miracle happening on the weird, Smurf-blue ice in Lake Placid, NY. Do you believe in miracles? YES! Hockey was on it's way back to tobacco country. I fully credit the 1980 USA ice hockey gold medal for generating the interest needed to bring a team back to the Coliseum.

The Winston-Salem Thunderbirds were embarrassingly bad that first season, winning only 14 of 50 regular season games in the recently founded Atlantic Coast Hockey League. But to me the “T-Birds” as they came to be known, were larger than life. That inaugural campaign fueled and reinforced a ravenous passion and devotion in me for not only the Thunderbirds, but for the sport of ice hockey as well.

Despite the fact that three of the seven teams folded before end of the season, the ACHL regrouped, added new teams and soldiered on. Attendance was solid given the poor results on the ice, and the scrappy T-Birds earned another season to win over the Camel City. And win they did.

One notable change that second season was a new name and logo, goodbye Winston-Salem, hello Carolina Thunderbirds. The biggest transformation though was on the ice. The T-Birds dominated, winning an astonishing 51 of 68 regular season games on their way to an undefeated post season and a runaway ACHL Championship.



The names still resonate through my mind like the chiming of a victory bell: Dave Watson, Mike Brisbois, Randy Irving, Peter Dunkley and goalie extraordinaire Yves Dechene, just to name just a few. But my favorite Thunderbird, Michel Lanouette, had the flowing locks of a young Jaromir Jagr and (seemingly) the speed and scoring touch of Alex Ovechkin at his best. Lanouette was electrifying and unstoppable that year, posting 41 goals and 44 assists in 61 games. He notched 14 points in eight playoff games as the T-Birds swept the hated Mohawk Valley Stars four games to none to clinch the championship.

Fans packed the Memorial Coliseum for every game that season. Crowds of 3,500 to 4,000 fans a game was not uncommon. The old arena wasn’t pretty, in fact it looked exactly like an overgrown version of Gomer Pyle’s quonset hut. But gaw-a-haw-lee, what it lacked in style it made up for in atmosphere. Game nights from back then are truly some of the treasured memories of my youth.

Handwritten banners taunting visiting teams and players hung from every corner of the building. Cow bells, horns and the fan led call-and-response chant of “WHAT’S THE WORD? THUNDERBIRDS!” bounced of the concrete floors and echoed through the lofty rafters of that wonderful old building. By the start of the third period, a thick, sweet-smelling fog of cigar smoke laced with the aroma of fresh corn dogs hung about thirty feet above the ice. It shifted and swayed, gently responding to subtle wind currents generated by the fast-moving action below. Most games I attended by myself. I’d beg and plead with my mom to let me do odd jobs around the house so that I could earn the $4.50 I needed to get in to watch my heroes in the red, white and black. She’d drop me off at the box office with explicit instructions: “Be careful and call me right before the third period starts.” We had the timing of our pick-up ritual down to a science.

One game in particular comes to mind where I blatantly disregarded my mother’s “be careful” rule. I would typically buy a seat in the upper regions of the arena and move around to different seats closer to the ice during the game. I preferred to sit at the end where the T-Birds were on offense as I was (and still am) a goal-minded fan. Yes, the fighting could be exciting, but for me the blast of the red goal light, the deafening roar of the crowd and the player’s sticks raised in primal celebration really floated my boat. For some reason at this particular game I decided to plant myself right behind the Erie Golden Blades’ bench. As in most games, a fight broke out on the ice. Evidently this must have been a particularly testy match, as while the fight was raging on the ice, the fans in my vicinity began engaging the Erie players and coaches in a very heated verbal exchange. Being 12 years old and possessing a somewhat non-threatening voice and limited expletive vocabulary, I did what any red-blooded, die hard T-Birds fan would do to get my point across: I spit over the glass.  

I first realized that this was a grave error on my part when the juicy little projectile cleared the glass. I could feel the eyes of the Golden Blades’ bench transfixed on its trajectory like awestruck spectators watching a rocket scream through the stratosphere. Well, Houston, the Eagle has landed…right on the head of Erie head coach Jim Mikol. Uh oh. The image of what happened next is still deeply ingrained in my psyche. In one quick motion Mr. Mikol procured a stick from one of his player’s and proceeded to hoist it high above his head and then smash it down tomahawk-style against the top of the plexi-glass directly over my head. Fury and ferocity like this is typically limited to nature documentaries of charging, psychotic rhinos. Good old-fashioned nostril-flaring, red-faced rage. This man wanted to MURDER me and I deserved it. It turned me from bratty 12 year-old to cowering, whimpering child in an instant. Then, when he began to scale the glass I believe I blacked out for a second. Thankfully, the crowd and in particular two large, blue collar guys who looked ready to beat the living daylights out of any Canadian in a suit, were on my side. Cooler heads prevailed and the coach was corralled by his players and assistants moments before he made it over the glass to beat me to death. I emerged from under the seats with my protectors at my side feeling empowered by a renewed sense of community and victory. That lasted about three seconds as one of my defenders grabbed my arm hard, looked me dead in the face and said, “You’re one lucky kid. Next time you spit on anyone I hope they give you exactly what you deserve. Now get outta here.” He shoved me towards the aisle and I spent the next two days shaking. Lesson learned.

The Thunderbirds thrived for years and had a devoted legion of fans who stuck with the team through good and bad. Between 1983 and 1991 T-Birds fans witnessed two more ACHL championships, the inaugural ECHL Riley Cup Championship, a losing season, and two league changes. But unfortunately, loyal fan support and success on the ice couldn’t save the Thunderbirds. In my opinion, end came when the city demolished the Memorial Coliseum and constructed the current building. No offense to Lawrence Joel, and the “new” coliseum is a top-notch venue, but the soul, spirit and heart of minor league hockey was lost when that building came down. The Thunderbirds were exiled to the LJVM Annex for the 1989 - 1990 season, what was to be their next to last.

I saw the writing on the freshly painted walls when I brought some of my college buddies home for a game shortly after the team took up residence in the Annex. As I walked through the doors I immediately knew it was over. This tiny arena seemed completely devoid of anything hockey. With its gray plastic seats, gigantic pastel art-deco wall hangings behind one of the goals, it was an absolute nightmare. It looked like an ice chalet for children, designed by an old woman with bad taste. I tried so hard to get into the game but it was an exercise in futility. Visions of tall trees whizzing by in the silver moonlight flooded my brain. The team moved to Wheeling, West Virginia the next year and took a part of me with them.

I moved back to Winston a few years later and wholeheartedly supported every failed attempt to bring a hockey team back. The Mammoths, IceHawks, T-Birds, Polar Twins and Cyclones all suffered short, quick deaths…choked out by pastel wall hangings in a lifeless, silent and empty building. I even reached out to the management of the Cyclones before they began their first season in a desperate attempt to give them some tips on what the team needed to do to succeed. To their credit their coach/GM actually called me and had me in for brainstorming session. But they were on a shoestring budget, handcuffed by the management of the Annex and could only do so much. I think I took my daughter to one game that first season and never returned. It hurt me to watch it.

Could hockey come back to Winston-Salem? Maybe, but it would never live up to my memories. And for God’s sake, if it does, please don’t let whoever named the Winston-Salem Dash within 500 feet of the planning sessions.

So now seems like a good time for my little known tidbit about the fantastic Thunderbirds/Slapshot connection. In one memorable scene from the movie, the team’s bus driver is shown bashing the side of the bus with a sledgehammer. When asked why, he simply responds, “I'm making it look mean.” The Thunderbirds used the actual bus from the movie for several seasons, complete with dents. You can’t make this stuff up, folks.

At this point I’ve happily resigned myself to occasionally breaking out my Thunderbirds t-shirt on special occasions and wearing it with pride. So if you see me sporting it sometime say hello and relive your favorite Thunderbirds memory with me if you have one. I’d love to hear it. Oh, and don’t tell my mom about the spitting incident.