“H” is for Hockey. The traditional Canadian sport of hokey had a minimal impact in South Carolina until the 1990s. Requiring cold weather for ice or expensive indoor rinks, the sport attracted little interest. That changed when the migration of many northerners to the state and the development of roller hockey. In 1993, the state’s first professional team, the South Carolina Stingrays who play in North Charleston, joined the East Coast Hockey League [ECHL] in 1993. Other ECHL teams soon followed: the Pee Dee Pride, the Greenville Grrrowl, and the Columbia Inferno. However, only the Greenville team [renamed the Greenville Road Warriors] and the South Carolina Sting Rays remained active in 2015. Additionally, South Carolina and the South in general, has seen a corresponding rise in the number of people playing hockey.
Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.