Tickets are now on sale for the Carolina Hurricanes' preseason game against the Nashville Predators at First Horizon Coliseum in Greensboro on Sept. 24, marking the defending Stanley Cup champions' first appearance in the city since their franchise's earliest and shakiest days in North Carolina. The 7 p.m. matchup went on sale to the general public at noon on Thursday, with the cheapest seats listed at $34 and the best seats priced at $181.
The game, one of just two home preseason contests the Hurricanes will play this year, was first reported by WRAL, whose Ashley Foster detailed the ticket pricing and sale timeline. Regular-season single-game tickets for the Hurricanes' home slate at Lenovo Center go on sale Aug. 20, per the same report. This year's four-game exhibition slate is unusually thin: the NHL announced on Wednesday a reduced 65-game leaguewide preseason schedule running just eight days, from Sept. 19 to Sept. 26, down from more than 100 exhibition games in prior years, according to Daily Faceoff. The change comes as part of collective bargaining adjustments tied to an expanded 84-game regular season.
A Homecoming Nearly Three Decades in the Making
The Hurricanes played home games in Greensboro from 1997 to 1999, back when the team relocated from Hartford and needed somewhere to play while its permanent Raleigh arena, now known as Lenovo Center, was under construction. That original stay was far from a love affair. The franchise struggled at the gate, averaging 9,086 fans per game in 1997-98 and just 8,187 the following season, as Raleigh-area fans balked at driving 80 miles up I-40 and Triad locals resisted embracing what they knew was only a short-term tenant, according to figures compiled by HFBoards and the Ice Hockey Wiki.
Part of that early friction traced back to how the Hurricanes even got into the building. When the Whalers' ownership group relocated the franchise in 1997, it paid $350,000 to buy out the remaining venue lease held by the AHL's Carolina Monarchs, displacing the minor league club to secure the Greensboro Coliseum as a temporary home, according to a history published by Fun While It Lasted. That maneuver, and the empty seats that followed in the 21,000-capacity arena, then the largest in the NHL, left a mark on local hockey sentiment that lingered well after the team moved to Raleigh.
A Very Different Hurricanes Team Coming Back
The Hurricanes returning to Greensboro on Sept. 24 look nothing like the struggling tenant of the late 1990s. Carolina enters the 2026-27 preseason as the defending Stanley Cup champion, having claimed the second title in franchise history on June 15 with a Game 6 win over the Vegas Golden Knights, a triumph Hoodline previously reported was celebrated with a downtown Raleigh parade that drew 150,000 fans. The team's full four-game exhibition slate also includes road games against the Florida Panthers on Sept. 20 and the Nashville Predators on Sept. 26, along with a home matchup against Florida at Lenovo Center on Sept. 22, before the regular season opens Sept. 29 with a Stanley Cup banner ceremony against Florida.
Greensboro has also built its own hockey identity since the Hurricanes left. First Horizon Coliseum now serves as home ice for the Greensboro Gargoyles, an ECHL expansion franchise launched for the 2025-26 season that functions as the official affiliate for both the Hurricanes and the AHL's Chicago Wolves, according to the ECHL. Minor league hockey had not returned to Greensboro since 2004 before the Gargoyles arrived, giving the Triad its own stake in the Hurricanes organization ahead of the Cup champions' one-off visit.
Two Arenas, Two Very Different Money Problems
The venue itself has changed too. What was known as Greensboro Coliseum since it opened in 1959 was rebranded First Horizon Coliseum in October 2024 under a 10-year naming rights deal worth roughly $1 million annually with Memphis-based First Horizon Bank and operator Oak View Group, per Pollstar News. That rebrand arrives alongside a much larger financial reckoning: the $34 billion state budget Gov. Josh Stein signed in July allocated $30 million in one-time funding for capital improvements at the coliseum, even as local leaders estimate $150 million is needed for deferred maintenance across the broader Greensboro Complex, as Hoodline reported last month.
Despite its aging infrastructure, the complex remains an economic engine for the region. An October 2025 Clemson University study found that events across the Greensboro Complex and Tanger Center generated $553.5 million in economic activity for Guilford County during the 2023-24 fiscal year, spanning 1,252 events and more than 1.7 million attendees, according to the Greensboro Complex. Meanwhile, the Hurricanes' Raleigh home has undergone its own transformation: what was PNC Arena was renamed Lenovo Center in September 2024 under a 10-year naming rights agreement anchoring a broader $1 billion redevelopment project for an 80-acre entertainment district, including retail, a 4,300-seat music venue, housing and a hotel, according to the Coley Group.
For one night, though, the focus shifts back to the Triad, where a franchise that once struggled to fill seats returns as a champion with tickets starting at $34 and topping out at $181 for the best seats in the house.
