Playing basketball in small hockey arena chilling experience for UNC, other teams

By R.L. Bynum

ESTERO, Fla. — When you try to play a basketball tournament in a minor-league hockey arena, there will be issues, and the players have had to deal with them during the Gulf Coast Showcase.

It’s colder than many grocery stores tend to be, and those are conditions that few players have ever experienced. Players go from the heat and humidity of southwest Florida to an icebox for the games because there is an ice surface under the court.

The only basketball games played annually at the home of the ECHL’s Florida Everblades hockey team are when the Hertz Arena hosts the eight-team men’s and women’s Gulf Coast Showcase tournaments, in their 11th seasons, on successive weeks in late November.

It made sense that UNC coach Erin Matson and her players to use hand warmers during the NCAA field hockey national championship game last weekend in a game on a cold November day. But a coach using them during an indoor game, as Carolina coach Courtney Banghart has done during the event, is rare.

“Definitely learned that we’re not good on a hockey rink, that’s for sure,” Banghart said Sunday after UNC’s 65–64 loss to Florida Gulf Coast.

Jessica Carrington, UNC’s assistant to the athletics director and director of basketball operations, went to a Target and bought 30 packs of hand warmers, and Anya Poole’s mother also bought some for the team.

Carolina’s players had those hand warmers in their jackets on the bench. The players who aren’t in uniform — freshmen Ciera Toomey and Layla Hull and redshirt sophomore Teonni Key — wear long pants, but all of the players in uniform wear shorts. Their legs probably get cold, but that isn’t the biggest issue.

“I think moreso their arms are getting cold and their fingers,” Carrington said. “With their fingers being cold, they can’t really feel the pressure of the ball in their hands. So, I think that kind of has been affecting their shot. I can’t speak for all the rest of the other teams.”

During pregame warmups, several players (including Paulia Paris, above) wore jackets.

While Carolina’s hasn’t shot very well in the tournament, some other teams have had no problems shooting a high percentage.

There is only so much that tournament officials can do.

According to tournament spokesperson April Goode, when they tried to make it warmer in the arena during the men’s tournament earlier this month, condensation formed on the court, so they had to scratch that plan.

While covering the game from the courtside, I wore a light jacket I had only packed for when I returned to North Carolina. That was packing luck because I wore that jacket, zipped up, during games. When I was working in the press room, the temperature was comfortable.

Minnesotan Alyssa Ustby, who was used to playing games in hockey arenas in high school, shook it off, but Texan Deja Kelly admitted that she noticed that breathing in this arena felt different.

Carolina center Maria Gakdeng has asthma that flares up in the cold, keeping her from returning in the second half of the Saturday loss to Kansas State.

The small size of the arena may also be a factor. I’ve been courtside for UNC-N.C. State men’s basketball games at PNC Arena, where ice is below the court, and it is never this cold.

The Tar Heels will no doubt be happy to return to the warm confines of Carmichael Arena next week.

Photos courtesy of UNC Athletics Communications