From Chapelboro.com
By Brighton McConnell
The UNC Club Ice Hockey team is in the middle of 2023-24 season, sitting with a winning record during a winter break before preparing for the last third of games in the regular season. The program’s leaders and supporters, though, are looking far beyond this season with a major project.
The team’s booster club recently purchased nearly four acres of land in Chapel Hill’s Carraway Village development with the goal of building a permanent hockey arena to help the team achieve its fullest potential – while also further bringing together the local hockey community.
For years, the UNC ice hockey team has used the Orange County Sportsplex’s rink as its home site for games and practices. It’s a popular place for many others to break out their skates and hit the ice. Greg Morey plays in a men’s league there in Hillsborough, and says it was through relationships in that hockey circles that led him to be invited on as the UNC team’s booster club president. He says it was flattering to be to be considered and became impressed when he learned that the club team had been around for more than 40 years.
From early on while leading the group, though, Morey became aware of the college team’s challenges of finding ice time at the rink. According to the hockey team’s head coach Adam Dauda, the program is only able to formally practice twice a week for a total of two hours because of the Sportsplex’s cost and availability.
“In a perfect world,” said Dauda, “during our practices I would like to cover several teaching points such as team systems, special teams tactics, pre-scout of our upcoming opponents and individual skill development. With our current situation at the Sportsplex, covering all of that is impossible in the limited time we have. However, with a new rink, our hope has been to get priority time slots and more ice time availability which would significantly help me cover all of those bases.”
“We got really frustrated,” Morey told 97.9 The Hill, “and we just sort of looked at each other and said, ‘Why aren’t we building our own rink?’ If we want to set this program up for success to potentially be a [Division I] opportunity, we need our own rink anyway. It’s one of the requirements.”
Presently, the UNC ice hockey team is at the club level, meaning it competes against other schools in the Atlantic Coast Collegiate Hockey League while being largely self-funded. Instead of falling under the umbrella of the Carolina Athletics department, the booster club of former players, alumni, parents and hockey fans helps coordinate the team’s travel and expenses. While its goal is to eventually move to Division I, the program and club are more focused on ensuring success and quality experiences for players year in and year out.
“I think the NCAA as a whole is undergoing a lot of change which has been putting athletic departments all over the country under some stress,” said Dauda. “Due to that, I think it would be difficult for any department to add a hockey program in the near future. However, if we keep continuing to create great experiences for the students and have all the pieces in place — such as a facility and a team that’s playing at a high level — I hope it’s only a matter of time until we are elevated to NCAA DI and compete for national championships.”
Morey said the program and its leadership looked for two years to find land for an arena, starting near UNC’s campus and branching out. One day after striking out with one lead, the booster club president said he drove by Carraway Village off Eubanks Road and was compelled to walk into the leasing office. Eventually, he got in touch with the development’s leadership who offered a parcel between the Public Storage facility and Interstate 40. The two parties announced the booster club’s land purchase in October.
Morey described his vision for the arena as being beneficial to both the club team and the broader Chapel Hill community. The UNC club team will have a permanent home and more ice time without constraints – but Morey also said the facility will give the program a chance to add a women’s team.
The booster club president said he thinks the location and facility could be a “lightning rod” to attract people – like developing hockey players, UNC fans checking out a different sport, and both Carraway Village residents and visitors. With plans for the future arena to seating more than 2,000 fans, Morey added the program hopes to draw much more of the campus community than before because of the arena’s proximity to UNC and public transit.
“You know, this land and this project sits right next to the [Chapel Hill Transit] park-and-ride lot, which has direct public bus access to campus,” said the booster club president. “So, the opportunity for this team to pull students and fans into the games is at a level that it’s not ever seen before, right? I mean, it’s not a 15-minute jump to Hillsborough and somebody with a car. This is the same bus system that probably takes them home to their apartment or to their, to their housing.”
The UNC ice hockey team recently shared the latest renderings for the arena. Taken on by Richard Gurlitz and his architectural firm, the design shows a facility with UNC branding on the exterior and windows providing a glimpse of the ice from the outside while letting natural light in. Beyond the rink, there men’s and women’s wet locker rooms for showering and changing out of street clothes, and a dry locker room that’s the more typical athletics locker room for players to be in. The club team will have offices in the building, workout rooms for its players, and a bar and grill area to offer a year-round business to the Carraway Village community.
Morey said much of the project will fit within the special use permit already granted to the Carraway Village developers, although some aspects of the arena will need to be reviewed and approved by the Town of Chapel Hill. It’s partially why he reached out to Gurlitz for the design work – although Gurlitz has his own ties to the club hockey team, as his son once skated in Carolia blue.
“He’s designing from a place of passion, intelligence and experience,” Morey said of Gurlitz’s contributions so far. “He’s also a gentleman that has worked with the town of Chapel Hill extensively. So, I can’t think of anybody better to guide us through a process that nobody else on the team really understands.”
Buying the land and designing the arena are just the first few steps in a much longer process, with Morey saying the booster club is now exploring its options for financing the estimated $20 million project. He said while there’s much work to do, progress has already been made raising money and a rink for Carolina club hockey “isn’t just a pipe dream anymore.”
“This for us… well, this is just getting fun,” said Morey, “because now we get to engage the community – the hockey community, the financial community, the supporters – to build this and have it as, you know, UNC hockey’s, home for men’s hockey, a future women’s program and ice sports in general, including youth and adult hockey leagues.”
If all goes to plan, Morey said the program hopes to have the arena finished in time for the club to open its 2025-26 season in Chapel Hill.
As for the current UNC ice hockey team, Dauda is coaching the players to be focused on getting to the playoffs and continuing to add to their trophy case. Morey said continuing the team’s recent success is important, because a winning culture will help with the program’s goals of rising through the college hockey ranks – while also drawing more interest from Carolina fans.
“If you want to elevate, you have to dominate,” the booster club president said. “That is our motto at the moment: our product on the ice drives fan engagement, fan engagement drives pretty much everything else that we’re doing. Nobody wants to come see a bad hockey team.
“Just ask Duke,” Morey added with a smile and laugh.
(Originally published at https://chapelboro.com/news/development/unc-club-ice-hockey-shares-early-designs-vision-for-20-million-arena-project-in-chapel-hill)
