The man who makes all of the Canes decisions.

Tom Dundon, the owner of the Hurricanes, joins us on the Adam Gold Show. I remember that day, five years and a month ago, when you said you wanted an outdoor game, and Gary Bettman sort of chuckled because he wasn't sure that it was possible. What did you see then, and how much work went into this?

Good to be with you, first of all. I don't know, what I saw sounded like fun, right? The NHL has done an awful lot of work, and everybody that works for the Hurricanes. It's a bigger production than I had realized, for sure.

Look, it's a massive undertaking. I see what Carter-Finley Stadium looks like now. I was over there yesterday. I got a chance to look at where I'm going to be during the game, and where my kids are going to be during the game, which is in Section 10 in the upper deck, with a great vantage point. It looks like it's going to be as good a venue as they have had anywhere in their, what now, I don't know, 30 outdoor games? Yeah, it's pretty intimate.

It's pretty neat how tight everything is to the field. Look at the ice now. Did you skate yesterday? No, first of all, I don't skate, but I was otherwise occupied. The skate was, I was over at the arena getting ready for the hockey game.

Yeah? What do you mean getting ready? What do you have to do to get ready?

I do pre- and post. I have writing to do. I have interviews to conduct. Okay, I believe you.

Tom Duncan is with us here on the Adam Gold Show. What was your vision for all of this? I know you say it's fun, but a lot more has to go into it. Yeah, look, I think having that, having that stadium right outside your front doors, it's just, it kind of, it seems crazy not to have that happen, right? Not to have this happen. It's like the first, you know, you drive up for the first time, the first time I came here and it, and then you take a college market, right? You have a market that's known for all its college teams and tailgating and then the stadium's in your front door. We had to do it, right?

Oh, Adam, there's no question you have to do it. In your first full season, so it was, you took over midway of the 17-18. They missed the playoffs. But the next full season, you had asked me at one point, when do the fans come back? And I said, there's a lag. There was less of a lag than I thought.

Top 10 in attendance. What does that say about how you guys have changed the culture here? Yeah, I hate to admit you're right, right? So, cause I, that, that was the question and I think you always believed it, that if we won, and I, you know, that's what everybody thinks, but it's nice when it actually happens, right? And it's way easier now. We actually met with the NHL scheduling folks for next season, you know, and in the past, if we didn't get Saturday night, it was hard. Now we could actually gain a bit of a competitive advantage by, you know, making the schedule the best for the team, right? Because, you know, I never wanted to be playing without the place full from the beginning, right?

Because I felt like that. It's just not very the players and the brand and the people who show up and it's just not a great experience to be at a sporting event that there's not energy and passion and people. And so we started with that. So now we can, now that that's going pretty well, we could start making sure that we don't give up any competitive advantage to try to make the schedule, you know, so focused on certain days where you can get the most fans because the fans tend to come every night now, which is, we're very lucky. You've had one crowd less than 18,000 all year. It was Halloween night against the Capitals. That was the only crowd.

We blacked that night out, just so you know, so we're not playing a Halloween this year. I mean, unless you trick or treat before the game, unless you let all the kids trick or treat before the game, that was the only one that was under 18,000. I keep reminding people of that because we were all here during the days where, well, it was 11,000, but it doesn't look like 11,000. No, it wasn't 11,000. Well, and they were also giving away so many tickets and that wasn't fair to the people who were paying. And so you had to stop that because, like you said, it was 11,000, but people that get free tickets don't go to things, you know, the drop rate's less. So it starts to not be actually 11,000 and then how many people paid for their tickets and then how was that fair to the people who actually, you know, spent their money. And so, yeah, it's a lot bigger increase than it actually says on that piece of paper, for sure.

I mean, it's just amazing. 18,512 a night, that's basically averaging a sellout for Hurricane Saki. How optimistic are you at plans for renovating PNC Arena, developing the area, and getting that done this calendar year so we can start on the project? You know, it's been a lot of people are doing a lot of work and, you know, there's obviously a lot of constituents that all have to make sure they get the things that are important to them. But from everything I've heard, I mean, obviously we're enthusiastic about our part and looking forward to it. But it feels, I mean, you're here every day, you probably know as much as I do about this, but yeah, it feels like it's heading in the right direction. I think there are a lot of motivated parties here and I think that when people are motivated and they realize that things have to get, we have to get to the finish line soon because of, you know, everybody wants the Hurricanes to sign a long-term lease and we want all of these things have to happen at the same time, otherwise nobody's going to agree to anything. So you guys basically all have to get to the starting blocks at the same time in order for these things to happen. Yeah, I think that's right.

That's what's great is we all, everybody wants to do, she feels like everybody wants the same thing and that makes it way easier. It's, you know, just looking at some of the drawings and, you know, when you start thinking about what the experience can be like, I find that, I find it pretty fascinating, so I'm very hopeful. Sportsbook inside PNC Arena? Yeah, I don't know technically inside attached, but it, you know, if it's not inside, it'll feel like it, you know, I don't know all the rules. Well, we don't have any rules yet. Maybe we should do that before we have rules.

Good idea. Just build something and then we could just flip a switch and, but it would be a brick and mortar thing for you, not just mobile? Yeah, so that, yeah, that's, I think you'd have mobile that would be just through the DraftKings, FanDuel, MGMs of the world. And then, and then you would pick one of those partners for the brick and mortar location. And, you know, that would be, obviously you'd bet there, but you know, hopefully it's going to be great restaurant and music and sports and just, you know, fun places.

People, at that point, people could gamble on their phones so they don't have to be in the place to do it, but they'd be able to do it without using their phone if they're there. All right, so let me, before I let you go, Tom Dundon is the owner of the Carolina Hurricanes and this is going to be a blast tomorrow night at PNC Arena. And last time I spoke with you, you said you were working on Hootie and the Blowfish and I said, no, it's just Darius Rucker.

And then, no, obviously Yahtzee, it is in fact Hootie and the Blowfish, so that is an incredible pull on your part. Since you're also involved in the hockey side of these things, tell me how many trades we're making in the next three, two weeks. I can tell you we're trying to make a hundred and I think we're going to make zero. Zero?

You're not making zero. We might, I don't know. It's hard for, our players are good and we like them and, you know, we're always, I mean, it's such a cliche to say it's dodge-dob to take all the calls and do all that because I think everybody's, I think that's obvious, right? You're trying. But it's, you know, we, we win a lot because our players are good and we, and we, we don't have any of them by accident. And so, you know, one, you have to be sure you're better, not just different. And then, you know, obviously there's, there's not many players out there that actually make us better that you could trade for. And then, then you've got to decide, you know, how much worse do you want to be tomorrow to get a little better today?

And, you know, we try really hard to find that balance. And Rod likes his guys, right? Most of the guys we got aren't going anywhere.

So that is true. I will, I will make a prediction that you will make more than zero trades. Okay. We're going to try. Look, we're trying.

I just, I just, you know, it's out of our control a little bit and if there's something we can control, we, we would definitely make one or two. Well, don't trade the head coach. Yeah, no, he's, he's, he gets to decide who gets to, how can I trade him? He's in charge. Hey, I don't think he believes he's in charge, but it's okay if you think that. No, no, come on. You know, it, you know, charge, you know, that's, that's his, that's the great thing about him, right? Is that even though he could do all he could have that you, everybody could know what you and I know to actually be true, but we all, nobody knows it and he might not even ever admit it. I mean, now you've ever admit it, but I can tell you it's our secret. I'm not, I'm, we're not doing something he doesn't want us to do.

And I can't imagine we're usually all work together on this stuff. I'll find out if that's true. I appreciate your time. I'll see you tomorrow night. Thank you so much. All right. Have a good show. Thank you. Tom, Tom Dundon, the owner of the Carolina hurricanes.