APEX, N.C. — The Carolina Hurricanes have sold out 61 consecutive hockey games at PNC Arena, dating back to Feb. 24, 2023. The new franchise record is proof that hockey is growing in North Carolina as more and more people get into the game.
The proof can be found in the ticket sales — in female involvement, as we've seen in the case of Raleigh native Mary Derrenbacher — and in the case of UNC's club hockey team getting promoted to a new league while also finding a new home in a developing stadium.
However, we can now add one more supporting puzzle piece in Apex Friendship High School senior and Apex Friendship club ice hockey team goalie Tyler Otte.
Otte has been playing goalie since he was 10 years old and grew up a huge hockey fan as a result of his parents. His mom is from Washington, D.C., and grew up a Capitals fan. His father grew up in New Jersey as a Devils fan. Tyler Otte, and his brothers, grew up in North Carolina and are huge Hurricanes fans. He now plays at Invisalign Arena for the Apex Friendship club hockey team, which isn't affiliated with the school in any official capacity.
"Growing up in North Carolina, you don't really think you're going to be able to experience it," Otte said. "Especially with the growth of the game recently and across in buildings like [Invisalign Arena], it didn't exist five years ago when I was just starting."
To Otte, there's no feeling like being out on the ice, playing with his friends and taking part in the game he loves.
However, that feeling could be even better if Apex Friendship High School, the Wake County school board, and the North Carolina High School Athletic Association adopted ice hockey as an official high school sport.
The high school students who play on the 12 teams from the Pure Division of Wake County's Triangle Hockey League get no outside funding. The kids and their families pay for their own ice time, their own equipment and they balance the sport with completing schoolwork like any other high school athlete does.
"Honestly, hockey's more electric than a football game. You hear everybody say around the playoff time for hockey that it's the best sport. Having people experience the sport is the exact reason why hockey should exist at the high school level in North Carolina," Otte said. "I'd say the biggest thing to help make club hockey become like an official high school sport is just getting support from as many people as possible. Especially because there's a lot of people who know the biggest barrier to entry in hockey is cost."
The biggest obstacle to ice hockey becoming a sanctioned sport in North Carolina isn't safety of the players or cost of equipment and uniforms for teams. It's the amount of ice that is available for schools to theoretically use if the sport was adopted.
NCHSAA Assistant Commissioner Brad Alford says they would love it if hockey could become a sanctioned sport, but they would need help from outside sources to make that happen. Once that help comes, they already have a road map for success in place.
"The NFHS is the National Federation of State High School Association [and it does] write playing rules for high school hockey. Having served on the NFA Rules Committee before, I know that health and safety and risk minimization is top priority for them," Alford said. "So without a doubt in my mind, the NFHS is taking those measures to make sure the high school sport is as safe as possible, even if that means that it may not look like the college sport or may not look like the professional sport."
But what does need to happen for high school ice hockey to exist? Unfortunately, it's a catch-22 situation, or as Alford says, a game of which came first ... the chicken or the egg.
"That may be a better question for our individual schools or perhaps our school systems like Wake County or Charlotte MEC," Alford said regarding how more ice rinks could be created or how funding could be secured. "What we're trying to do is work with the [North Carolina] State Board of Education and make sure that our student athletes are eligible so that they can participate in any sport that our schools offer. Again, we have the road map in place of once our schools reach that threshold of 25% of the total member schools, or 50% of a given classification, it then becomes a NCHSAA championship."
Now, even though the numbers and participation are meaningless until more ice rinks are built in North Carolina to support hockey outside of areas like Greensboro, Charlotte or Raleigh, there is still an important distinction to be made about the situation.
Public schools in North Carolina do not need to wait for the NCHSAA to make ice hockey a sanctioned sport, which only means that they provide state tournament situations.
The Wake County Public School System could adopt ice hockey to start playing on ice rinks in the area, thus aiding students and families with funding. However, they would rather wait for the NCHSAA to sanction the sport first. There are exceptions to the rule though.
"I wouldn't say it's impossible, because we've seen recently lacrosse has taken off in our high school community here in the state," Alford said. "Once it met that criteria, then we did exactly what the handbook told us to do, which is create that state championship. And, you know, as we travel the state in our regional meetings in the fall or have other meetings during the summer, we're in front of athletic directors or superintendents or principals. You know, we make it very clear that we want our student athletes participating in as many sports as possible, and then we do share with them that process of it becoming a state championship."
With so much bureaucracy to deal with, Otte has taken matters into his own hands for how to grow the game in the meantime. He designs his team's uniforms from scratch using things he's learned in high school.
He's as smart and well-rounded of a kid as they come. He hasn't received a letter grade for a year lower than an "A" since middle school. He's third in his graduating class of 600-plus students at Apex Friendship, and he's heading off to N.C. State to study engineering.
In high school, Adobe Creative Cloud classes are taught to allow students to learn how to use programs like Adobe Premiere Pro or Adobe Photoshop. Otte has used those programs to take elements from his school as inspiration for his club team's uniforms.
"For me, the passion comes from being able to grow the identity of the team, because club hockey is brand new for high school, at least at the level it's appearing at now," Otte said. "It was about taking the elements from our school and also some elements from just some popular hockey jerseys and kind of combining them and merging them and you know, making what I and other people have told me are some of the best jerseys I've seen. I had to include on the shoulder patch, the official school logo, and then as a little element on the sleeve design, I added three stars just because patriots, American, you gotta have some stars somewhere on it."
Otte's ability to make the uniforms and social media graphics for the Apex Friendship club team comes from his passion for the game, and for the goal of leaving something behind for kids following him.
"The struggle is mainly getting people to come out to games. Once they see it, they love it. They want to come back for more. So by having good graphics, good logos, good jerseys, people want to come out to see games," Otte said.
The link to buy tickets to the upcoming playoff games for the Triangle Hockey League can be purchased here.
People wishing to learn more about the league or get their children involved can go here.
Alford says, while there is no timetable on the books for getting ice hockey sanctioned at the high school level, he would not be surprised if it happens sooner than later.
"I think we have seen our schools be very creative in ways to make that work when they don't have on-site facilities," Otte said. "So I think that's probably the one thing, you know, as you mentioned, that you have to address from the parents' side of things. I think you've got to get some momentum and not only the equipment, but the facilities and schools, school boards of education, that are willing to to, you know, fund those efforts."