Crowds eat up Canes' ice hog

RALEIGH -- Stormy the Ice Hog hid in a Zamboni machine that first night, hoping to surprise Carolina Hurricanes fans with a grand entrance.

The announcer introduced the new mascot before a crowd of about 7,000. But when the machine's tank was opened, no one emerged. All the audience could see were furry, twitching legs.

Some debut.

Phil Madren, the guy hired to wear the suit, apparently asphyxiated on carbon dioxide vapors seeping from a bucket of dry ice inside the tank.

Madren survived the 1997 incident, later settling a lawsuit against the team in 2001 for an undisclosed sum.

Despite that inauspicious start in Greensboro, where the team played its first few years, the Canes have stuck with Stormy. He can be seen at every home game, riding his ATV in the parking lot beforehand or sliding snout-first down steep stair rails between plays. He has become one of the most recognizable faces of the Canes' team.

You have to be a bit of a freak to don a 10-pound pig suit and come up with crazy stunts, said Anthony Gioia, the Canes' first full-time mascot. He wore the suit for six years.

But ask George Brown, 23, the guy who currently hams it up before a Canes crowd. For him, Stormy was a match made in hog heaven.

Born in Arkansas (home of the Razorbacks, a kind of wild boar) in the Chinese Year of the Pig, Brown came to the Canes in August. His credentials: traveling with the Harlem Globetrotters as their mascot Globey and masquerading as Wally the Warthog for Winston-Salem's minor league baseball team starting at age 13.

Only 12 of the 30 National Hockey League teams have full-time mascots, jobs that pay between $20,000 and $80,000 a year, Gioia said.

But who knows? If Brown strikes it big, Stormy could wind up among Mascot Hall of Famers he reveres, such as The San Diego Chicken or the Phoenix Gorilla.

The Hurricanes adopted a pig mascot shortly after moving to North Carolina nine years ago. The state has more hogs than any other state except Iowa -- 9.5 million of them. The Hurricanes also wanted to recognize pork mogul Wendell Murphy, who gave millions to N.C. State and owned the original naming rights to the RBC Center, where the Hurricanes play.

Like other pro sports teams, the Canes are big on maintaining mystique around their mascot.

"No one is Stormy," marketing director Howard Sadel said. "Stormy is Stormy... [like] Mickey Mouse is Mickey Mouse."

Brown toes the line: "Santa Claus is real. So is the Easter Bunny, and so is Stormy."

To parents, he puts it this way: "My job is to get into Stormy's head. ... George is just somebody who knows a lot about Stormy."

The mascot got a makeover about four years ago. The pig's head was too big, Sadel said. And its smile resembled a grimace.

The team decided to switch to a more cartoonish character. Stormy wears an unforgettable, fixed expression, with huge, twinkling eyes and an enormous smile.

Fans fall for Stormy less for his costume, though, than for his prankster personality.

"I'm 36, and I still enjoy watching him," said Keith Johnson of Wendell, a season ticket-holder since 2001. "Whoever's in there does a great job."

Occasionally, Stormy's bravado rubs people the wrong way.

At one game, after the Canes scored, the 6-foot pig came flying across the ice toward Wilmington resident Tom Gardner, 34, an audience member wearing a Buffalo Sabres shirt. Gardner's friends say the pig smacked his snout up against the glass, picked his nose and wiped his finger against the barrier.

"The pig was taunting him," said friend Kevin Beasley, 34, of Wilmington. (Gardner and the pig made up at a later game.)

But a brassy attitude has won no shortage of Stormy groupies.

"Kevin! Patrick!" called Lisa Schmid, 41, yanking back her sons, ages 8 and 4, to keep them from tugging at Stormy's jersey and trailing the pig down stadium stairs. "You can't follow Stormy everywhere."

"They love Stormy," said Schmid. "That's all they look for when they come to a game."

Can you blame them? the Cary resident asked.

"Where else can you have a job where everybody who looks at you smiles?"