Canes fans gather for watch party at Carolina Ale House with optimism for a win
It was 3:30 p.m. on a sunny Thursday afternoon when John Chitla showed up to Carolina Ale House in downtown Raleigh, dressed in a red Carolina Hurricanes’ jersey and a hat he wore backwards.
He sat alone at a long table surrounded by flat screen televisions and waited for his seven friends to get off work. They planned to watch the game together at the Carolina Hurricanes’ official playoff watch party.
Chitla, 23, who was born in Raleigh and now works as a business analyst at a management consulting company, said he’s been a fan of the Hurricanes since birth. His dad was a hockey fan, so he fell into it.
He celebrated the Canes’ Stanley Cup win in 2006, and remembers 2009, when the Canes were last in the playoffs. And he remembers the pain and disappointment of missing out on the playoffs for nine consecutive years.
So as he sat waiting on his friends to show, and his food to arrive, he reminisced about the journey.
“It was pointless hockey for 10 years,” Chitla said. “Going to that last game and being able to watch them clinch, for the first time in 10 years, was something I didn’t think I would ever see in person.”
Father and son, Kevin and Tyler Pavese of Raleigh, remember the disappointment of losing too. But they said they kept believing that one day it would happen. It did.
The Canes officially clinched a playoff berth on April 4.
Kevin Pavese, 53, said it brought a tear to his eye. Tyler Pavese, 21, who attended the game that night, said he got goosebumps.
Tonya Crider, a Canes fan since 2002, made the 1 1/2 hour-long drive from her home in Danville, Va., to Carolina Ale House in Raleigh with her friend Phyllis Tuggle, a Capitals fan. Crider, 54, and a Canes season-ticket holder, was excited to see the Canes back in the playoffs, too. She went to a watch party at an Ale House in Cary in 2006 when the Hurricanes were in the playoffs then.
By 5:30 p.m. Carolina Ale House was nearly three-fourths full of Canes fans dressed in red and black, two hours before face-off. Red, black and white balloons decorated the restaurant. Outside the restaurant, the road was blocked off and a tent was set up for fans to watch the game outside, while a D.J. played Bruno Mars and Cardi B’s “Finesse.”
By 7:30 p.m., it was packed and the crowd was ready. The smell of beer, burgers and wings filled the air.
Remington Scarborough, 29, sat on a stool on the patio at the top floor of the restaurant and peered outside to see how many people were down below. He wore a black Canes jersey and looked excited.
Scarborough has been a Canes fan since 2006 when they were in the Stanley Cup finals. His dad got free tickets to Game 7, and wasn’t interested in going, so he gave them to his son. Ever since then, Scarborough said he’s been hooked on hockey and the Canes.
“It’s been too long,” Scarborough said repeatedly. “I was crying when we found out that we made the playoffs.”
The Hurricanes entered the playoffs as the first wild card and play the Washington Capitals, who won the Stanley Cup last year, in a best-of-seven game series.
When asked did he think the now-famous “Bunch of Jerks” had a chance to beat the Capitals, Scarborough said, “Oh, heck yeah.”
“We winning,” Scarborough said. “If anybody says anything different, ‘No, get out my face.’ We are the jerks, and we’re going to roll with that.”
This story was originally published April 11, 2019 at 6:40 PM.
