The Carolina Thunderbirds were a professional ice hockey team located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States. The Thunderbirds played their home games at the old Winston-Salem Memorial Coliseum before the arena was demolished in 1989. The team played in the Atlantic Coast Hockey League from 1981 to 1987, the All-American Hockey League during 1987–88 and finally moved into the newly created East Coast Hockey League in 1988.
The Carolina Thunderbirds were one of five teams that played during the inaugural season of East Coast Hockey League (ECHL). The Thunderbirds won the first ever ECHL championship and were awarded the Riley Cup for the 1988–89 ECHL season.
The team changed its name to the Winston-Salem Thunderbirds before the start of 1989–90 season and the team remained in the ECHL until the end of the 1991–92 season when it was announced by co-owner Ed Broyhill that Winston-Salem would move to West Virginia to play as the Wheeling Thunderbirds.
Team history The new franchise in Winston-Salem was awarded to a Cincinnati group headed by businessman Dave Gusky in 1981. The team was named the Winston-Salem Thunderbirds and were the second professional hockey team to be based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, after the Winston-Salem Polar Twins, who played in the Southern Hockey League from 1973 to 1977. The Thunderbirds began in the inaugural 1981–82 season of the Atlantic Coast Hockey League (ACHL) and played their home games at the old Winston-Salem Memorial Coliseum, with capacity of 5,500 for hockey games. During the season, Gusky called recently retired former Buffalo Sabres' player Rick Dudley and asked for help with the struggling team. Dudley originally planned on staying for a few weeks to evaluate the team but realized the team would fold if he left. Dudley proposed that he would stay with the team and try to sell the franchise for Gusky and if that did not work, he would buy the team himself. After three of the seven teams had folded during the season, the league decided to end early and set the playoffs with the four remaining teams by geographical area to save on travel expenses. In their inaugural season, the team would finished 14–33–3 under head coach Curry Whittaker. The Salem Raiders defeated the Thunderbirds in five games in the playoffs.
After the first season, Dudley bought the team from Gusky and replaced Whittaker as the head coach. Dudley then rebranded the team as the Carolina Thunderbirds. Former Colorado Rockies player Dave Watson also joined the team and led the league in scoring with 102 points, 53 goals, and 49 assists. Starting in 1982 the team won four consecutive ACHL regular-season championships. The team improved to finish with a league-best 51–10–7 record in their second season. The team allowed only 208 goals (3.06 per game), the lowest per game average in team history, while also leading the league in scoring. Defenseman Rory Cava led the league with 60 assists during the season and was awarded with the ACHL Most Valuable Player (MVP) after the season. Watson and Michel Lanouette earned first team selections to the ACHL All-Star team, while Brian Carroll and Randy Irving had second team selections for their performances. Watson continued to lead the team in the postseason, leading the league in scoring with 14 points. They won their first Bob Payne Trophy, awarded to the playoff champion, in 1983 after defeating the Mohawk Valley Stars in four games, going 8–0 through the playoffs.
The following season, Watson was limited to 29 games during the regular season, but he was healthy again for the playoffs. Goaltender Pierre Hamel and Irving became first team selections to the ACHL All-Star team following the regular season. The Thunderbirds beat the Mohawk Valley Stars in the playoffs to return to the finals. In the finals, against the Erie Golden Blades, the Thunderbirds lost the championship in five games. Bill Coffey assumed team ownership from Rick Dudley in 1984. The team had their best regular season during the 1984–85 season with a 53–10–1 record with Watson again leading the team with 85 points. John Torchetti began his professional hockey career with the Thunderbirds, while Irving and Bob Hagan were named first team ACHL All-Stars for the season. After defeating the Virginia Lancers, they met the Blades again in the 1985 finals with the Thunderbirds defeating them in six games to win their second league championship. Watson led the league in assists during the playoffs with 14 while Brian Carroll was awarded the ACHL Playoff MVP award for his 11 goals and 9 assists. In the 1985–86 season, the team had a 49–14–0 record. Center Joe Curran, scored 42 goals and league best 82 assists for a total of 124 points, was awarded the team's second ACHL MVP after the season. Goaltender Ray LeBlanc was a first team selection to the ACHL All-Star team and Irving was a second team selection. Dave Watson, who only played in nine games during the season, played in his last playoffs as he would retire after the season. In the 1986 finals, the Thunderbirds and Blades faced off for the third time, with the Thunderbirds winning in five games to become the only team to win consecutive ACHL championships. Bob Doré was awarded the ACHL Playoff MVP award.
After winning three championships in four years, Dudley moved up to become the head coach of the Flint Spirits in the International Hockey League and former Thunderbird player Mark Huglen was hired as the new coach. Huglen was unable to get the same results and after a poor 12–16 record to start the season, including 11 straight losses, he was replaced by another former Thunderbird player, Pierre Hamel. The team finished the season 23–31–2 with 48 points, enough for the fourth seed in the playoffs. The team lost in the semifinals to the Virginia Lancers in five games. Despite the team's down year, the Thunderbird's Doug McCarthy led the league in both assists and points and Scott Knutson was awarded with the ACHL Rookie Of The Year.
In 1987, the ACHL merged into the All-American Hockey League (AAHL). Hamel started the season as head coach but was replaced by another former Thunderbird player, Brian Carroll, mid-season. The Thunderbirds went on to finish second in the standings with a 34–15–0 record, 68 points, and seven points behind the first place Virginia Lancers. John Torchetti set season records with 63 goals scored and 134 points and was a first team AAHL All-Star. Torchetti also was named the AAHL MVP after the season. In the AAHL playoffs, the Thunderbirds were beaten by Virginia in the championship series to finish their only season in the AAHL.
The team was one of the founding five teams to form the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL) in the 1988. Bill Coffey sold the team to minority owner John Baker during the season. On October 28, 1988, the Thunderbirds played at the Johnstown Chiefs in the first game in ECHL history. The team's 1988–89 regular season was mediocre and the team went through four different head coaches. Incumbent head coach Brian Carroll was replaced early in the season by Joe Selenski. Keith McAdams then filled in as head coach for one game before the team hired Brendon Watson as head coach on February 19 with only 13 games left in the season. Watson coached the team to 8 wins in the final 13 games before the playoffs. The team struggled on defense during the regular season, with a 5.48 goals against average (GAA) per game. With a 27–32–1 record, the team finished in fourth place in the five team league. As the fourth seed, the Thunderbirds swept the regular season champion Erie Panthers in four games. In the inaugural ECHL championships, the Thunderbirds faced the Johnstown Chiefs. The Thunderbirds lost game one at the Chiefs 8–1 as the Chiefs scored four power play goals during the game. After losing the first two games by a combined score of 14–2 in Johnstown, the Thunderbirds won the next three games to take a series lead 3–2, putting the Thunderbirds one win away from the title. Game two had a combined 186 penalty minutes between the teams. During the series, the ice at Winston-Salem Coliseum melted prior to game four because a compressor shut down during the night. The originally scheduled game five in Johnstown became game four and the Thunderbirds hosted game five back at home. The Chiefs' Tom Sasso scored two shorthand goals to help his team even the series in game six by defeating the Thunderbirds 7–4, a game that included several fights. After the game, in an effort to protect the league's image, ECHL commissioner Pat Kelly suspended three (Steve Plakson, Bill Huard and Michael Lanouette) of the Thunderbirds' players. As a result, the Thunderbirds were forced to face the Chiefs in the seventh and deciding game with just 11 skaters. Coach Watson used a plan of changing personal on every whistle during game seven to slow down the pace of the game and buy as much rest for the few players he had available as possible. In spite of this set back, in the final game of the series, The Thunderbirds beat the Chiefs 7–4 to win the first ECHL Championship, and were awarded the Riley Cup for the season. Goaltender Nick Vitucci was named the Most Valuable Player for the playoffs. In the series, John Devereaux and E.J. Sauer lead the Thunderbirds in goals with five each, Bob Wensley lead the team with eight assists, and Randy Irving lead the team with nine points from three goals and six assists. , three Thunderbirds' players still held the top three spots for the ECHL record for the most penalty minutes in a finals series from that year; Steve Plaskon with 95, Michel Lanouette with 68 and Bill Huard with 58. Six Thunderbirds scored one power play goal each and Sauer scored the team's only short–handed goal, during game three, of the series.