Why one Hurricanes TV host spent the summer helping others in war-stricken Burma
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- Hanna Yates joined Free Burma Rangers to report from conflict zones in Burma.
- Yates trained for months, then traveled to Thailand, Burma and Malaysia in summer 2025.
- Yates interviewed pro-democracy forces, visited bombed camps and wrote war-zone reports.
Hanna Yates will soon be back at rink side with the Carolina Hurricanes as part of the FanDuel Sports Network telecasts, but after a summer unlike any other.
In 2024, when the Canes’ hockey season ended, Yates, who joined the FanDuel Sports Network’s hockey broadcast team in 2022, transitioned from the ice to the field and became part of the company’s Atlanta Braves Major League Baseball coverage, quickly moving from hockey interviews with Andrei Svechnikov to interviewing, say, Matt Olson or Marcell Ozuna on the field at the Braves’ Truist Park.
But Yates wanted something different and personally challenging this year, something that might further enrich her life. A devout Christian, she wanted to use her faith to better serve and aid others.
Yates served with the Free Burma Rangers, a multi-ethnic humanitarian service group formed in 1997 with the stated goal of working with pro-democracy groups to help the oppressed and bring hope to those caught up in seemingly hopeless situations. The group trains relief teams to provide emergency medical care, food, clothing and supplies in and around Burma, often in war zones.
“For me, it was definitely faith fueled,” Yates said in an interview. “It was to serve God and use the skills He has given me for reporting, and in a unique way to help other people.”
‘Moral courage’
During physical training more befitting an Army Ranger, she once lugged a 35-pound backpack up a mountain, and spent months in conditioning in preparation for final testing. One requirement for FBR team members is both physical endurance and the “moral courage to stand with those under attack.”
That’s a big ask. Burma, called Myanmar outside the U.S., has had more than 70 years of civil war and various military dictators. Thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced, and reported human violations have been many.
“It really escalated following the government coup in 2021,” Yates said. “They had a democracy style government and the Burma military overthrew that government, said it was a false election and took over. The Burma military is running the country and attacking the ethnic minority people who are there.”
In June and July, Yates was based in Thailand and then traveled to Burma and Malaysia, not knowing what she might be asked to do but willing to do whatever was asked of her.
“I’ve had it on my heart for a while,” she said of her decision to join FBR. “I went on a mission trip through my church in 2018 in Guatemala. During that time, I worked with a lot of kids, and through a lot of conversations there l learned that a lot of kids were being trafficked through sex trafficking, human trafficking.
“I thought about it for years and tried to get involved with different organizations in the U.S. and all over. It just wasn’t a fit with reporting. I started reaching out because I love war reporting and have a ton of interest in that.”
Finding FBR
Through friends, including one in the U.S. Army Special Forces, she learned of Free Burma Rangers. She gathered information. There was a need for more reporting, or as Yates put it, “Getting the word out on what was actually happening with more boots on the ground in these war zones.”
“A lot of people don’t know what’s going on there,” she said. “You see all the attention on Ukraine and Iraq and the Middle East where the U.S. military has a presence for obvious reasons, but I felt like all the conflict and the war in Burma was being overlooked and there’s not nearly as much help there.”
Yates learned there were people in FBR who simply worked in offices, writing up the reports. There also were those who went on missions with the relief teams to do on-the-spot reporting.
In late February, an FBR team assisted in an intense battle in Moe Bye village in southeastern Burma, working under machine-gun and mortar fire to rescue pro-democracy force casualties and move them to a surgical unit.
“I thought about it for a while and got an email back that said, ‘This is pretty dangerous if you’re to come and do this,’” Yates said. “I wondered if this is what God called me to do?”
Yates was told in April that her application had been accepted. She wanted to go. The folks at FanDuel Sports Network and the Hurricanes were supportive of her decision, she said.
“I mean, people were fired up,” Yates said. “They were surprised about it, but all of my bosses were encouraging, knowing it was a life experience and something I was super passionate about.”
Overseas, she visited patients in hospitals who had been wounded in war zones and wrote their stories, describing what they experienced. In Burma, she said she met with a pro-democracy task-force soldiers at JDS training to fight against the Burma army, interviewing, seeking their stories.
While saying there were times the front lines and heavy fighting were within a couple of hours from her position, Yates said she never felt in any serious danger. But she also visited camps that recently had been bombed and saw enemy drones overhead.
“I knew that there could be danger, that I was putting my life potentially on the line with all these other people, but I never felt the fear and danger, per se,” she said.
Return to a routine
Upon returning to the U.S., Yates said she attended several weddings. She visited her parents in Florida. A degree of normalcy returned.
She’ll soon be back to doing the FanDuel Sports Network pregame and postgame shows with the Hurricanes along with in-game reporting. She’ll be interviewing Svechnikov again and talking about the Canes’ power play.
“It was incredible what Hanna was able to achieve this past summer, and we were all thrilled for her to have that opportunity,” said Jay Rothman, FanDuel Sports Network vice president of production who oversees NHL broadcasts. “It shows her dedication to her craft and her versatility as a reporter that she could go from reporting on hockey to reporting in a war zone. We are excited to have her back safe and sound to be with our Canes production group as we prepare for the upcoming NHL season.”
And there’s baseball. Growing up in St. Louis, she became a baseball fan attending Cardinals games with her father, and received her first game ball as a kid from former Braves star Andres Galarraga.
But she’ll never second-guess her decision to go to Burma this summer, to take a different path.
In reflection, Yates said, “I felt like I know my purpose is serving God and I’ve known that for a long time. But for me, it was to explore war reporting and allow Him to send me wherever that is to challenge myself in new ways.”
This story was originally published September 5, 2025 at 12:32 PM.
