Arena: First Horizon Coliseum (1959)

Location: Near Downtown Greensboro, North Carolina

Games Attended: February 7, 2026 vs Reading Royals and February 28, 2026 vs Norfolk Admirals

Game Results: Gargoyles 4-3 in a shootout! But then they lost 4-2 to Norfolk, sad!

Seat Locations: Both Sides of the Rink Downstairs & One Intermission on the Fan Zamboni

Overall Impressions: “Good, Clean Family Fun, eh Cotton?”

I became a born-again hockey player in Greensboro, North Carolina. 

It’s a journey that began some 25 years ago, in a small recreation center in Northampton Township, Pennsylvania. My best friend Craig, whom you’ve met all over the Tour de NHL from New York to Vancouver, signed up for a floor hockey league together. That was my first foray into this wild and crazy game: just shoes, shin guards, a cheap plastic stick, and chasing an orange ball around a gym floor. But I couldn’t get enough; I loved every minute of it!

Craig and I played in that floor hockey league for three or four years, before graduating to a larger, outdoor concrete rink in nearby Richboro. Floor hockey became roller hockey, a faster and more complicated game on wheels. We had our run there too, playing another season or two, but eventually, life got in the way. For me, my weeknight trips out to the hockey rink were replaced by middle school basketball games and eventually, summer golf camps and tournaments. And around 12 or 13 years old, I gave up playing hockey. 

It wasn’t until many years later, in the summer of 2013, that I found my love for playing hockey again. I was 20 years old, living with my sister Kristin for the summer at her condo in Greensboro. One weekend in between weeks of my summer finance internship, I started daydreaming about hockey. “I wonder if there’s any roller hockey around here…”, I thought. Sure enough, the Greensboro Sportsplex popped up on Google.

The Sportsplex was home to a small but dedicated community of roller hockey players. It was nothing special: a small rink only large enough for three skaters per team, two small locker rooms, an equipment room, and a scoreboard that barely worked. But for two years, every Wednesday night and most Sunday mornings, I made the 20-mile trek from the Elon University campus to the Sportsplex to play hockey. And I had the same enthusiasm and excitement for those adult league games as I did every Saturday morning before my youth league games with Craig in Pennsylvania. 

But hockey in Greensboro, North Carolina runs deep in our family, long predating my discovery of the Sportsplex in 2013. You see, Dad used to live in Greensboro, working for Wrangler Jeans and later Convatec Pharmaceuticals. And Dad attended many a hockey game at the Greensboro Coliseum for the old Greensboro Monarchs, an ECHL (third-tier of professional hockey) team that played in town from the late 80’s to the mid 90s. 

Dad talked for years about the joys of going to Monarchs games with his friends. Like any good, upstanding hockey fan, he and his mates enjoyed a beverage or two or….well, more. “We had maybe a few before the game, maybe a few during, and just maybe a few after. But of course, it was half-and-half iced tea,” he told me. 

(Editor’s Note: The Editor hereby calls “bullshit” on the “iced teas”.)

The Monarchs had a great culture of fans who enjoyed their “half-and-half iced teas” and going crazy for the fights and cheering on their team, and indeed the team succeeded on the ice too. In six seasons, the Monarchs made it to the ECHL Finals three times and won the Riley Cup championship in their first season in town in 1990! They moved up in the professional hockey league hierarchy in 1996, before making way for another team to move into the Coliseum: the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes. 

The Canes arrived in North Carolina in 1997 after leaving Hartford, Connecticut, but their brand new home, now named Lenovo Center in Raleigh, was two years away from completion, and the team needed an arena large enough to host professional games. The logical choice was a two-year stint at the Coliseum in Greensboro. But fans used to minor league ticket prices got some sticker shock when the Hurricanes raised ticket prices. Not to mention that this would be a temporary stop for the team and not a permanent home. Attendance suffered as a result, averaging 9,106 and 8,187 fans, respectively, in their two seasons in Greensboro. (The Hurricanes now average over 18,000 fans per game in Raleigh). Opposing announcers mocked the “Green Acres” of empty seats upstairs at the Coliseum, and long-time Hurricanes owner Peter Karmanos even said that “Greensboro was probably a mistake” in a 2006 interview. 

When the Canes left for Raleigh in 1999, a new ECHL team was established to fill the Hurricanes’ spot in Greensboro: the Greensboro Generals. The Generals survived five years, made the playoffs only once in 2003, and folded in 2004 due to poor financial performance. The Coliseum would not host hockey for another 21 years. 

Somewhere in that 21-year span of Greensboro hockey purgatory, podcasting became a thing. And being the hockey sicko that I am, I found the Spittin’ Chiclets podcast, which remains one of my favorite shows to this day. The Barstool Sports creation features a slew of hilarious figures, including former NHL players Ryan Whitney, Keith Yandle, and Paul “Biz Nasty” Bissonnette. Chiclets has given my friends and I plenty of great material and great laughs over the years. But I didn’t expect worlds to collide like they did in January 2025, when the Chiclets boys announced their investment in a new ECHL team to start play in, you guessed it, Greensboro, North Carolina.

And so, in the fall of 2025, the Greensboro Gargoyles were born. A new hockey team in a city that means something special to me, and co-owned by my favorite hockey podcast. Two words came to my mind:

“Road trip!!!”

I attended two Gargoyles games at the Coliseum in February 2025: one with my sister Kristin and her friends Amy and Brian, who are partial season-ticket holders, and one with Dad for his 2025 Christmas present!

We made our way downtown to the now-named First Horizon Coliseum, a 22,000-seat goliath of an arena that’s more known as the long-time home of the ACC and NCAA basketball tournaments than for hockey. Built in 1959, it predates all 32 current NHL arenas; Madison Square Garden is next oldest, opening in 1968. My admittedly limited Wikipedia-based research told me that the Coliseum is the oldest NHL arena that still hosts professional hockey today.

I was fortunate enough to meet a local celebrity before my second Gargoyles game, the ferocious and hilariously named Doyle the Gargoyle! What started as a fan-submitted joke on Spittin’ Chiclets turned into a fantastic name for the team’s mascot, one that rivals NHL greats like Mick-E-Moose and Tusky. 

Before the teams took the ice, Biz narrated the pregame hype video, stating that “Greensboro is a hockey town, where thunder once rumbled inside the Coliseum. A city where hockey didn’t just visit, it lived, it thrived.” Today, the Gate City certainly isn’t the BEST hockey market in the world, but we still had a great time at both games. 

I asked Dad about the Gargoyles’ game atmosphere compared to the Monarchs games he used to go to. “A little calmer,” he explained. “To be expected, with it being the first year, and not winning.” He’s probably right: winning cures all and gets the fans going, and the Gargoyles have struggled in their inaugural season: as of today, they’re dead last in the ECHL standings.

But like most minor league sports, the fan experience is about much more than winning or losing. It’s about cultivating a family-friendly atmosphere that makes for a fun night out on the town. And what better way to cultivate a family-friendly atmosphere than by offering people rides on the “Fan Zamboni”. 

Every intermission, there’s a special “dummy” Zamboni that takes a select group of fans on a ride around the ice, letting them experience the thrills of being in the heart of the action. It’s the same kind of ride New York Drew and Mike surprised me with in Ottawa on the penultimate night of the Tour in 2023, and I loved it! And thanks to one of those tall-boy “half and half” iced teas, I started scheming while watching the Fan Zamboni loop around the ice. 

So I decided to surprise Dad for his “Christmas game” with a ride on the Fan Zamboni, and he absolutely loved it. “It was great,” he told me. “Would’ve liked to been out there for half an hour, but it was great!”

Today, Greensboro has a budding new team that the fans have clearly adopted. Everyone from young kids to older retirees sported purple and black hats, jerseys, and tee shirts with Gargoyles logos. Of course you had the cutesy minor league gimmicks like the dance cam and the “Chicken Dance” and fans playing “Chuck a Puck” during the 2nd intermission. But you also saw an educated fanbase that understood the game. They cheered for saves, and for clearing the puck on penalty kills, and of course they went bananas for the fights. But they get it. Above all else, the Gargoyles are THEIR team. They have THEIR team in town once again. And I wish the Gargoyles all the success the ECHL has to offer.

Greensboro, North Carolina is certainly not the best hockey market in the world. The Hurricanes struggled to draw fans in their two seasons at the Coliseum, and the Generals folded financially after five seasons. Even today, the Gargoyles have struggled on the ice. And the Coliseum is far from the nicest or most modern arena in professional hockey. 

But for me, Greensboro will always hold a special place in my hockey-loving heart. The Sportsplex will hold a special place in my heart as the place where I was “born again” into this wonderful sport. Without that summer daydream and that decision to play hockey again, I may not have taken this Tour de NHL journey in the first place. I’d never have met my roller hockey teammates in Philadelphia, taken the plunge to play ice hockey in Charlotte, or participated in the 11 Day Power Play in the first place. 

The Coliseum will hold a special place in my hockey-loving heart too. A new “Tour de ECHL” was born here, a journey that will continue to new and exciting places throughout 2026. It’s a place for the Dotson family (and friends) to gather for a family-friendly activity, to eat soft pretzels, drink some “iced teas”, and cheer on the Gargoyles. Just as Dad went to Monarchs games seeking out fights and goals and drinks as a young adult, so did I in my early post-college years in Philadelphia. And we got to do that again together, supporting the Gargoyles. 

Like father, like son. 

And just like that exciting night in Ottawa, where one of my best friends surprised me with a ride on the “Fanboni”, so too did I surprise one of my best friends with a similar ride on the Gargoyles’ “Fan Zamboni”. Riding around on the ice, waving to thousands of strangers and just taking in the vibes. 

What a perfect Christmas present.

Like son, like father. 

Arena: 2 / 5

Atmosphere: 3.5 / 5

Neighborhood: 2.5 / 5

Overall: 2.5 / 5