“I never saw a hockey ball game in my life.”
That was the mindset for at least one Charlottean of the approximately 13,000 that showed up to the Coliseum one day in 1956 to catch a glimpse of the newest sport to land in the Queen City - ice hockey.
The origin of hockey in Charlotte is a legendary one, with the Eastern Hockey League’s Baltimore Clippers searching for a home to finish their season after a fire burned down their rink and landing on the newly constructed Coliseum.
Hockey was a fairly foreign concept to many in the region. Much of the curious bunch that made the trip to the Coliseum that day didn’t know the rules - the team hosted an on-ice demonstration before warm ups to familiarize the crowd - and at least one prospective fan was unclear on what species was involved.
“They couldn’t believe we could skate on those little thin blades with a big pair of gloves on,” said Pat Kelly, a hockey legend who came through Charlotte as a visiting player in that era and eventually coached the Checkers in the 70s. “I had some of them come up to me and say Mr. Kelly, let me touch you, are you real?”
Despite its unknown nature, it didn’t take long for the locals to fall in love with hockey - particularly one area.
“The fans would come to see a fight,” said Jim Lane, who played for the Checkers in the 60’s. “That’s what they were there for. The fans were looking for action. They wanted something to happen.”
A deep connection was formed then and there, and the team would officially put roots down in the Queen City.
Charlotte’s newest team needed an identity of its own, so fans were encouraged to submit name suggestions, with legendary NHLer Maurice “Rocket” Richard selecting the winner (that’s a whole other story).
Checkers proved to be the winning entry and has stuck with the team over the decades to follow, but what if Richard had gone a different route?
What if he had sided with the local woman who “wanted the whole world to know that ice hockey had migrated south?
Then we’d be the Grits.
Evoking the regional pride of the beloved culinary dish and (perhaps incidentally) the rough-and-tumble nature of the sport, the name Grits is a seamless fit for what hockey in Charlotte was then and what it has grown into.
So for one night in January, we’re posing the question “What if the name Grits had been chosen?”
And while the Queen City Grits represent a hypothetical path history could have gone down, one thing is certain - hockey’s roots in this region are deep and they run through the Queen City.
“Charlotte paved the way for hockey in the South,” said Kelly.
