Migrating away from the Pond: Being a Ducks fan at a Hurricanes home game

The Anaheim Ducks lost, yet again, to the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday night, by a final score of 5-2. Marking their eighth loss in a row and sending the early-season success story careening down the standings to sixth place in the Pacific Division, the Ducks should be in full panic mode by now.

Despite all the recent negativity with the recent on-ice results, however, my family and I made our annual three-and-a-half-hour pilgrimage up to Raleigh, North Carolina to see our favorite team play live. What was the game day experience like as the away team?

Pre-Game

Being born and raised in Southern California, I spent the better part of a decade taking my wife and kids to Anaheim Ducks games at Honda Center. Now that we reside on the East Coast though, this year's trip marked the fifth time that we have traveled to the Lenovo Center, to watch the Ducks. I remember the cultural shock of that first pre-game experience, as Hurricanes fans love to tailgate and the experience is encouraged.

Fans arrived well ahead of the doors opening for the arena and were either eating, drinking, listening to music, playing mini sticks or cornhole, chatting with other fans, or partaking in any other combination of pre-game activities. I do not know what the game day experience is like at Honda Center anymore, but tailgating like Carolinian residents would not have been allowed, when we still resided in So-Cal.

The only downside to the pre-game, was the cost of parking for the Lenovo Center; $45 to get into the lot. I remember scoffing at the idea for a $20 parking ticket for Honda Center; I would have welcomed that cost back in a minute.

In-arena experience

Call me a homer, but the Honda Center was more aesthetically pleasing than the Lenovo Center, with its palm trees and teal accents, versus the dull and grey concrete barn of the Hurricanes. In arena food and drinks were of the usual variety, but I highly recommend the Storm Brew, the team beer of the Caroling Hurricanes (if you're into drinking). Everything was pricey, but that's to be expected of any professional sporting event.

We made our way down to ice level for the pre-game warmups, as that was the closest, we would get to the Ducks players. Mentally, I was taking notes of which players were on the ice and who was absent, like Tim Washe being in the lineup and Troy Terry being absent. I encouraged our kids to try to get any Ducks skater's attention, in the hope of getting a puck for them, but there was no luck this year either.

In a sea of black and red of Hurricanes colors, us Ducks fans stood out. And walking around the concourses, seeing another Ducks fan was like seeing an old friend; we would acknowledge each other in some form or fashion, either with a simple greeting or like one excited Ducks fan I bumped into wearing a Paul Kariya Wild Wing jersey, by exclaiming how much he loved your Teemu Selanne throwback jersey.

Game time

It's a strange feeling, not being pumped up for the introduction of the home team, being a fan of the away team. And the Hurricanes fans are loud, as they should be, their team has been perennial playoff participants at this point, and the Ducks have been also-rans for years now.

Once the puck dropped though, the sounds were like any other game I've seen live. Not having the usual background noise of the television play-by-play was a welcome reprieve and forced me to watch the game more intently, or as best as I could, with my daughter asking more popcorn or more juice. However, Ryan Poehling was the first Duck skater to give us away fans a reason to cheer.

Even though Mark Jankowski of the Hurricanes evened the score, Mikael Granlund soon responded to give the Ducks the lead.

A Hurricanes fan a couple rows behind us, yelled, "What was that?" after Granlund had scored. And my son, being the quick-witted fan he is, responded, "That's a goal."

That would be the last on-ice highlight though, as the Hurricanes rattled off three straight unanswered goals, sending us Ducks fans home with another loss. After the game, the Hurricanes players did their customary Storm Surge celebration, giving love to former Duck Frederik Andersen.

Post-game

The Ducks were vastly outplayed by a superior hockey team and were outshot 35-13. Expected goals in all situations for the Ducks were 2.7, with the Hurricanes at 4.5. Only one Duck skater was above 80% for expected goals, Radko Gudas, while the Hurricanes had four skaters above that mark.

Despite the loss, I would encourage any NHL fan to at least see one game live, in their lifetime. If you are a fan of the away team, such as me and my family, that's fine. If you are a fan of the home team, that's even better.