Friends, family, and loyal customers gathered Friday night to celebrate the one year anniversary of Charlotte’s Not Just Coffee. Originally located at Area Fifteen near NoDa, Not Just Coffee relocated Uptown when the Seventh Street Market opened in November.

Opening Not Just Coffee was originally a part time endeavor for James Yoder, who continued working his day job at a local hotel until he could run the shop full time when it moved to Seventh Street Station. Not Just Coffee’s original home, Area Fifteen, serves as an incubator for artists, nonprofits, and small business startups, as well as a community center for the neighborhood.

Yoder trained at the Counter Culture Coffee facility located at Area Fifteen. His shop uses the pour over method of preparing coffee and buys their organic, fair trade beans from Counter Culture. This has helped the shop build a loyal fan base: Not Just Coffee is the highest rated coffee shop in Charlotte according to Yelp.

Not Just Coffee hosts a city-wide latte art competition, Queen City TNT, on March 13th at 7:00 PM.

Read our article on the opening of Not Just Coffee.

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This June, Charlotte will once again play host to international soccer. Last March, Bank of America stadium hosted Mexico vs Iceland in a warm-up for the World Cup with over 65,000 fans in attendance.

Charlotte will host Group A matches between Costa Rica and El Salvador at 7PM, and Mexico and Cuba at 9PM on June 9th as part of the 2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup. The winner of the tournament will qualify for the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup in Brazil. CONCACAF stand for the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football.

The United States is in Group C and the Gold Cup championship game will be held June 25th in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.

The Christmas party at Area Fifteen was unique in Charlotte, and that was even before the samurai sword-wielding giant gorilla arrived.

The event, Urban Stratum, was a little bit of everything; an art show, a concert, a covered dish supper, a rope dance demonstration, and a coffeehouse.  The show was put together in a few short weeks by first time organizer Jeff Taylor.

Taylor, a Charlotte Flash Mob instigator, wanted to see more grassroots art events in the city. “Stop complaining about the situation and start doing something,” said Taylor. “So many people were up for doing something on short notice.”

According to Taylor, putting on an art show in Charlotte “is not something easy to do but there’s not really any barriers. There’s not a ready-made art scene. [This] offers opportunities because the scene isn’t so established so there isn’t much of a hierarchy.“

Also attending the Christmas party was a group of a dozen or so homeless from the neighborhood. Chris and Andy Davis, members of the Project Isaiah 58 homeless ministry, recently moved into the neighborhood where they share a house with a couple of previously homeless neighbors.

In a scene only Area Fifteen could pull off, hipsters and homeless where chatting over plates of spaghetti and potato casserole. “It was encouraging to see how well those groups meshed,” said Taylor.

Project Isaiah 58 emphasizes building community and relationships with the homeless and, unlike some charities, “not just handing them a sandwich and running away. They aren’t necessarily foodless, they’re homeless.”

Musical acts included Austin Hill of Eyes of the Elders, Marcie Hernandez, Erik Button and Luke Gunn of Dollar Signs, Garrett Glaus of We Are Royalty, and DJ Nick Powers. Glaus performed for the packed Not Just Coffee Shop located in the same building at Area Fifteen.

It wouldn’t be an Area Fifteen event without some sort of performance artist. Greylan Counts, who previously fire danced at a Barcamp preparty, demonstrated rope dancing for the crowd.

Artists on display included Jeff Taylor, Ana Jofre, Nick Bloomberg, Kendra Harris, Amber Watts, Mark Doepker, Natalie Bork, Joe Dobson, Carlisle Kellam, and Scott Partridge.

On planning the Christmas party and art show at Area Fifteen, Taylor said, “The whole building opened up and it became a community event. There are some great people in that building. People came out of the woodwork asking, ‘What can we do to help?’”

Pedestrians on North Davidson stop and snap photos as a man in suspenders and a red wool hat steadies himself atop metal scaffolding. William Puckett and his wife Lauren have spent the weekend finishing their large mural in NoDa. Started in June of 2009, Puckett has worked on the project between other jobs.

Chris Ingram embodies the laid back vibe of NoDa, arriving at the mural unshaven and sporting a well worn long t-shirt and ball cap.  In a couple of weeks he plans to open a new bar at 3213 North Davidson called Jack Beagle’s.

“We’ll have beagle bites, beagle burgers,” jokes Ingram. He looks up at Puckett on the scaffolding and jokingly says they will have a special called the Pucketteer – “a bucket of six of the shittiest beers we can find. They don’t even have to match.” After laughs from Ingram and Puckett, Ingram adds, “maybe we’ll have to call them ‘crappiest’ beers.”

While it may appear Ingram doesn’t take Jack Beagle’s seriously, a look inside the remodeled space makes it clear he has put a lot of time and sweat into transforming the former industrial shop. The bar itself, for example, features a curved metal footrest and hand-poured concrete top.

Next door, boxes are rolled out of Salvador Deli on hand trucks. A handmade sign and flowers sit outside the door, placed there in memory of beloved owner Stuart Sloan who passed away last week. Since then, the deli has been closed and its future uncertain.

Ingram says he was in the process of buying the deli when Sloan passed away, and says Sloan’s unfortunate passing has complicated things. Still, Ingram is confident he will be able to reopen the deli within a couple of weeks.

The changing seasons means changing weather, and Puckett works to get a coat of sealant on the mural before rain moves back into the area this week. Puckett and Ingram hope to have a “ribbon cutting” for the mural and an opening celebration for Jack Beagle’s in a couple of weeks.

There is hope that Salvador Deli will be back as well, but the loss of Sloan will be felt throughout the community for quite some time.

Pulitzer Prize winning author, TIME editor-at-large, and CNN host Fareed Zakaria spoke Tuesday evening at Charlotte’s Blumenthal Performing Arts Center. A guest of the Queens University Learning Society, Zakaria spoke on the phenomenon he refers to as “the rise of the rest.”

The Twentieth century was the American century. The industrial revolution and two world wars thrust the United States into power, and the end of the Cold War left the U.S. as the world’s lone superpower. The twenty-first century is a time of dramatic change, as new powers emerge around the world.

Zakaria described this as

“… a phenomenon I call the rise of the rest. The last 350 years the West has been the dominate player in the world, and now you see the rise of the rest. Go anywhere in the world today from Brazil, to South Africa, to Kenya, to India, to Sri Lanka, to Malaysia, to of course China, and you see these countries politically stable, economically well hinged — booming.”

The first factor that has allowed the rise of the rest is a relative peace and political stability which resulted from the ending of the Cold War and its related proxy wars. “The number people who have died of war are a steady downward trend.” Zakaria asked, “When was the last time the ten richest countries in the world were not in any significant geo-military competition with each other? You’d have to go back 300, 400 years. This is a very unusual, unprecedented level of political stability.”

The second factor in the rise of the rest was the end of the cancer called hyperinflation.

“In the 1970s the United States had 15 to 19 percent inflation, Brazil 1000 percent, Turkey 2000 percent.” Zakaria described hyperinflation as, “deeply destructive to the social fabric of a society.”

“A recession, even bad recession, robs you of what you would have had. Hyperinflation robs you of what you already have. It destroys your assets. Everywhere you have had significant hyperinflation often you will see a regime collapse — a collapse of government. The number of countries which had hyperinflation in 1979 was 35. Today it is zero; the last was Zimbabwe. Without hyperinflation you can have low interest rates, you can have cheap credit, you can have stability, and people plan for the future, build for the future, invest for the future, spend for the future, which does not happen in times of hyperinflation. This is the crucial economic stabilizing force that has unleashed enormous opportunity.”

The third factor in the rise of the rest is technology. “Information is plentiful and you can see what’s happening all over the world from the mines of Chile to the markets of Shanghai.” Zakaria described how, in 1990, the Iraq invasion of Kuwait was considered a Saudi state secret as the Saudi’s debated whether or not to ask the U.S. for assistance. “Today, how long would that stay a state secret?” asked Zakaria. “Three minutes? Some guy in Kuwait would Tweet, ‘I’m being invaded by Iraq.’”

Zakaria also described how technology played a role in allowing the Iranian “Green movement” to mobilize protests after last year’s elections. “They were connecting, networking, and talking to each other on these mobile platforms.” The only way the Iranian regime could actually stop people from gathering in parks was to shut down the entire cellular network. “Technological connectivity has create a more connected, more globalized society.”

Given the world is now more economically stable, politically stable, and technologically advanced than ever before, “Why are Americans so glum?” asked Zakaria.

“These same forces have had a very interesting and challenging effect on American middle class. The problem is that capital is mobile, technology is mobile, but the average American worker is in America, and America is one of the highest wage countries in the world because it is one of the richest countries in the world – you wouldn’t want it otherwise.

It’s not outsourcing anymore. The term actually doesn’t make sense anymore. All these companies have global operations and global suppliers. They are just investing in the India operation, the China operation, the Brazil operation, the South African operation, but they are not investing very much in the American operation.“

Zakaria described how a union worker at an automobile manufacturer makes 28 dollars an hour and a non-union worker makes 14 dollars and hour. Mexican worker makes seven dollars and hour and are now as productive as the American workers.

“In the past ten years productivity levels of emerging market factories have begun to reach or match those in America. Fourteen dollars an hour translates to $35,000 a year. This $15,000 below the median family income in the U.S., and that is a good job at one of America’s greatest companies. This is not a game we are going to win. We have to move up the value chain. We have to get in the new industries, the industries of the future.”

These future industries include biotechnology and nanotechnology, according to Zakaria. “This will take enormous investments,” said Zakaria, who described how the U.S. had invested greatly in research during the Cold War and has much to show for it, from semiconductors, to GPS, to the Internet.

“If we view it properly this is an enormous new opportunity. And it is, by the way, the world we wanted to create. We’ve been going around for the last 70 years telling the rest of the world open up your markets, open up your politics, open up your technology, buy into the American dream, and they all did.

A hundred years from now somebody is going to write a history of the U.S. at this moment and say, ‘The odd thing about the U.S. is in the early twenty-first century they actually achieved their one historical objective; they globalized the world. They just forgot along the way to globalize themselves.’”

Fareed Zakaria discusses these themes in depth in his New York Times Best Selling book, The Post-American World.

Hundreds of spectators have visited the airport overlook and stopped along Yorkmont Road to snap photos of the world’s largest aircraft this past weekend. The Antonov An-225 prototype was built by the Soviet Union in 1988 to ferry the Soviet space shuttle, the Buran.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the cancellation of the Buran space shuttle project, the sole An-225 spent years in storage until Ukrainian Antonov Airlines began using it and its smaller siblings to transport cargo too heavy or too large for other aircraft. This is the Antonov’s second visit to Charlotte this year. In June the plane delivered power plant rotors to be repaired by Siemens.

The Antonov was scheduled to depart Charlotte Saturday evening, but engine trouble delayed the flight until 6:30 PM on Monday.

The new Mint Museum opened Uptown to much fanfare on Friday, October 1st, making it the largest museum in the state and competing Charlotte’s new cultural campus along with the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, the Knight Theater, and the Harvey B. Gantt African-American Cultural Center.

Charlotte Pecha Kucha Night volume 7 was part of the twenty-four hour opening celebration at the new Mint museum. Other activities included a dance party and a late-night poetry slam presented by Quentin “Q” Talley. Here is the list of PKNCLT volume 7 presenters:

Jonathan Brilliant
Ahmer Inam feat. Classical duo Alla Prima (Emily Higgins & Kirsten Carrell Osborne)
Hardin Minor
Dimeji Onafuwa
Fahamu Pecou
Carlos Salum
Anthony Schrag featuring various other artists
Ce Scott w/ Mitchell Kearney
George Smart
Quentin “Q” Talley

The 6th edition of Charlotte Pecha Kucha Night went down this past Friday. Pecha Kucha Night continues to evolve and always showcases some of the best and brightest in the QC. Earlier this year, Charlotte Pecha Kucha was selected the city’s “Best Creative Gathering” in the Charlotte Magazine “Best of the Best” awards. PKN CLT is presented by Point8 Forum and, for the second time in a row, a packed Dharma Lounge hosted. Douglas Welton again served as MC for the event. Below is the list of presenters.

Natalie Bork
Crista Cammaroto
Ana Jofre
Jason Kierce
Robert Kosara
Jack Ossa
Carlos Salum
Cathy Sheafor
Wolly Vinyl
Mike Wirth

From PC Mag:

There’s more mobile data competition than ever before, and more people are surfing the Internet on the move. So PCMag.com decided to take a snapshot of America’s mobile networks and see who’s doing the best in 18 cities. Using more than a dozen staffers and freelancers with software of our own design, we cruised streets from Boise to Miami checking AT&T, Cricket, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Sprint 3G, and Sprint 4G against each other.

See the test results for Charlotte on PC Magazine’s website.

Street scenes outside the NRA convention.

Charlotte hosted the 2010 National Rifle Association Annual Meeting (NRAAM) over this past weekend. The NRA reports that up to 70,000 people visited the convention.

On Friday afternoon, crowds slowly began to file out of the arena after Sarah Palin’s speech. There were no guns to be seen; the only hostlers were those for cell phones. Several tour buses were parked along Trade Street, their diesel engines idling. In front of the coaches stood women holding signs reading, “To Charlotte Convention Center.” The buses slowly filled and departed on their three block trek from the arena to the convention center.

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Have you been wondering what those things are on South Tryon Street at the I-277 bridge? Those are the latest monuments donated to the city by the Queens Table foundation – anonymous donors who also gave us the Queen Charlotte statue at the airport, among other monuments. Read the Queens Table monuments presentation to city council.

Uptown’s streets are the heart of Charlotte’s political voice. Anybody who has anything to say, to celebrate, or to protest, can do so publicly here. I love to photograph the honesty seen on the streets. Rallies for an against everything from taxes, to war, to human rights, to religion – every side of every issue seems to be represented by Sharpie on poster board at some point. Sometimes it is best to let the images speak for themselves without trying to offer commentary.

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Los Angeles transit website MetroRiderLA recently created a bracket of NBA playoff teams based on their home city transit systems. The first round matches Charlotte against Orlando. Will CATS fare better than the Bobcats have so far?

The most interesting angle to this first-round contest is that it is between two cities with feline-themed transit systems. Orlando, home of the NBA’s second-bets team of the 2009-2010 season, has its transit service operated by the Central Florida Regional Transportation Authority. The public refers to it as the Lynx.

Charlotte, home of the Bobcats, its second NBA team, is also home to Charlotte Area Transit System — CATS. The centerpiece of its system is a light rail line known as LYNX. So, we have two teams that both can lay claim to the Lynx name. So, there’s some measure of pride on the line in this game, too. It’s probably a more interesting rivalry than the one Atlanta and Milwaukee had over their diagonally striped buses. The winner of this contest goes on to face Atlanta in the semi-finals.

Read the full post at MetroRiderLA.

A packed Dharma Lounge hosted the fifth installment of Pecha Kucha Night in Charlotte on Thursday, April 8th.

The set up for the event was simple – each presenter gets 20 slides, with 20 seconds per slide. The night started off with a poetry slam and ended with a musical performance, with the presentations in between ranging from photography, to comedy, a visual performance, artistic dance, and eco-design.

The event was sponsored by Point 8 Forum and Dugg Dugg, and the MC’s for the evening were Carrie Gault and Mitchell Kearney.

Below is an alphabetical list of all the presenters at Charlotte Pecha Kucha Night Volume 5:

1. Austin Ballard and Paige Cochran

2. Jeff Cravotta

3. “El Negrito”

4. Valaida Fullwood

5. Paul Gibson

6. Jack Kirven & Annie Vereen

7. Kym Motley

8. Nikki Mueller

9. Bradley Kirk Turnage

10. D. I. von Briesen

Barcamp Charlotte 3 took place on Saturday, bringing together technology, design and creativity at Area Fifteen. Around 150 attendees pitched ideas for sessions and then voted on their favorites.

Sessions ranged from freelancing, to civics 101, budget film making, Google, social media, mobile development, tips on marketing, and an intro to massage therapy.

One session even included a field trip, lead by D.I. von Briesen, to tour the Ecobox sustainable building project at CPCC. One of the last sessions of the day included a discussion on how to standardize Twitter hastags within the Charlotte community.

Check out Eric Frazier’s barcamp recap in the Observer, Eric Orozco’s thoughts on what was missing from barcamp, photos of the event by Tom Bonner and Andy Ciordia, and see what others are saying  about Barcamp Charlotte 3 on Twitter.

Thousands of rabid fans packed Uptown Charlotte on Wednesday for the Mexico versus Iceland soccer “friendly.” While the game ended in a zero – zero draw, Mexico dominated most of the game, getting several close scoring opportunities.

The festivities start early in the day for fans of Mexico, and by 5PM tailgate parties are in full swing with drinks, face painting, barbecue, mariachi bands, and blasting sound systems. Closer to the stadium, Mint Street is closed off and stages and tents offer games, entertainment, and prizes.

The main entertainment, however, is the non-stop parade of fans. Horns, drums, whistles, and cowbells and chants are lead lead by a man in a Mayan headdress. Honk, honk, honk, May-He-Coe! Olé, olé olé olé! Flags and banners of all sizes fill the street. Smoky fireworks create a haze in the late afternoon sun. “Hey! Hey, take my picture!” shouts a group of young men as they strike a playful pose behind their barbecue grill. “Can I offer you a beer? Shot of tequila, amigo?!”

Inside the stadium, the crowd reaches fever pitch as Mexico takes the field. It doesn’t matter that this exhibition game is more like  a preseason or spring training game, or that only a few of these players will make the World Cup squad. This is their team. Giant banners stretch across several sections of seats. Huge flags cover large areas of stadium, the fans underneath bouncing with relentless energy. Everyone has a sign or flag or foam finger to wave. More fireworks fill the lower section of the stadium with smoke. How did they get those past security? I wonder.

Yet security never seemed to be an issue. Though wildly energetic, the massive crowd seems well behaved and even polite. Everyone seems willing to share what they have. No drunken fistfights or puking over the railing like I’ve seen an Panthers games. The US national anthem is meet with loud cheers and waving of American flags. The Icelandic national anthem is met with the same respect.

A scoreless game doesn’t seem to dampen the spirits of the Mexican fans. The constant drumming and horns continue as fans spill out of the stadium and down the streets. I start to wonder if  Bank of America stadium has ever seen an event like this, and I then I start to hope I’ll  be there see it again.

Dugg Dugg, an upstart art gallery in NoDa, created a buzz upon opening last April. It was closed by June – a victim of costs and code enforcement. The historic NoDa factory building was returned to the stewardship of insects and dust, but this would only be the beginning of Dugg Dugg’s evolving life.

Co-founders Iris Williamson and Andrea Brown didn’t give up on their dream. The two, along with supportive friends, held a new show titled “American’s Children’s Home” on Oct. 23rd at a new location in historic South End. The former auto repair shop and warehouse at 130 West Bland Street provided a fitting setting for the gallery.

Dugg Dugg had evolved into a nomadic gallery, always seeking to try something new. In January, Dugg Dugg presented Platonic Voyage at Story Slam, a performance installation that took participants on a 24 hour voyage across the seas.

The latest incarnation of Dugg Dugg is at NC Music Factory in Uptown. On Friday, March 19th, Brown and Williamson held the opening of “1/1000 sq/ft.” Later in the evening, Maury Gortemiller gave a biographical presentation on competitive apnea.

Included in the artworks are two towers by Steven Abadie. Standing ten feet tall, they occasionally beep Morse code between themselves.

The largest piece of the exhibit is a life-sized “Ohka” aircraft created by Taro Hattori, an artist-in-residence at the McColl Center for Visual Art. Williamson reports the installation took two days to set up.

Viewing of the “1/1000 sq/ft” exhibit is still available by appointment, and be on the lookout for the next incarnation of Dugg Dugg in another part of the city.

Cedar Posts first posted a story about the naming of the eaglet Tuesday, saying:

More than 800 names were submitted in WCNC’s “Name the Eaglet contest” and the Carolina Raptor Center has narrowed the list down to five names including “Noah”.

Cedar Posts can’t imagine a tribute to a fallen Marine more fitting than the naming an Eagle in his memory. What a wonderful day it will be, when we all can watch “Noah” take flight, to soar over the country that Lance Corporal Noah M. Pier gave his life to defend.

This morning, Bill Fehr also posted the story of the eaglet naming on his blog. Fehr, a local bicycle messenger, blogger, and Gulf War veteran, recently blogged about his experience meeting Lance Corporal Pier’s family at the visitation.

Vote here for one of the five finalists for the name of the new baby eagle. According to the website, the deadline to submit your favorite name is Monday, March 8 at 12 p.m. EST.  The winning name will be announced Monday, March 8 on WCNC.com and NewsChannel 36.

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photos: James Willamor; view this video on Vimeo

One hundred, twenty-six photos of Charlotte taken in 2009, more or less in chronological order. The majority of the photos were taken for CLT Blog and Crossroads Charlotte. The song is Brand New, released in 2009 by Charlotte area artists One Big Love. A list of events and people featured in the slideshow is after the break.

First Night Charlotte, Uptown

Tailgating at Arizona Cardinals at Carolina Panthers, Uptown

Pecha Kucha Night Vol. 2, Alive in NoDa

Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade, Uptown

Barcamp Charlotte Pre-party, Uptown

Barcamp Charlotte, Area 15

March 2nd snow, Uptown, Southend

Blake Edwards and Chris Crutchfield work on the short film “Fait”, Uptown

Amazing Race Bar Crawl, Uptown

Art Social night, Area 15

Saturday on Sunday, Saturday Skateboards

St. Patrick’s Day parade, Uptown

Trips for Kids/The Recyclery. Area 15

Charlotte-Douglas International Airport

Dugg Dugg gallery opening, NoDa

Jonathan Reed filming “Guys Night Out,” Eastway

Sharazad Improv, Wine Up, NoDa

Streetwise Drift, Metrolina Expo, Derita

Postgig Charlotte, Green Rice Gallery, NoDa

Art and Soul, Southend

CLT Blog town hall with Anthony Foxx

CLT Blog Sky News Team, Uptown & Southpark

Duke Energy Center construction, Uptown

Richard Thurmond, Charlotte Magazine BOB Awards party, Southpark Mall

June 5th flooding, Mallard Creek Greenway, University City

Taste of Charlotte, Uptown

“Southern Holiday” at Dugg Dugg, NoDa

Uptown Amphitheater opens at NC Music Factory, Uptown

Plaza-Midwood Gallery Crawl, Plaza-Midwood

Wheelie Man, Uptown

NASCAR Hall of Fame construction tour, Uptown

Culture Initiative Show and Tell, Neighborhood Theater, NoDa

Heroes Convention, Charlotte Convention Center, Uptown

CLTblog town hall with John Lassiter

Bill Fehr, Charlotte bike messenger

William Puckett and mural at 3213 N. Davidson, NoDa

Sharazad Improv, Dugg Dugg, NoDa

Cobbler at Latta Arcade, Uptown

Wedding photos, NoDa

24 Hours of Booty, Myers Park

NoDa Gallery Crawl

Carlos Espin, Parkwood Green, Villa Heights

Pride Charlotte, Gateway Village

Charlotte Caribbean Festival, Independence Park

Nationwide Kiss-in, Freedom Park

Battle Slam Jam, Grayson Skate Park

Pat McCrory, Charlotte Transportation Summit, Convention Center

Sprinter Enhanced Bus unveiling, Wilkinson Rd. service center

Mario artist, NoDa

Emerging Artists tent, Festival in the Park, Freedom Park

Charlotte Greek Festival, Dilworth

Ghandi Park dedication, Uptown

Charlotte OUT Parade, Uptown

Charlotte Zombie Walk, Uptown

Dr. Richard Dawkins, Queens University

Barcamp Charlotte 2 pre-party, roofless building, Villa Heights

Barcamp Charlotte 2, Area 15

August 22nd thunderstorm, NoDa & Derita

Dios de Los Muertos, Levine Museum, Uptown

“American Children’s’ Home,” Dugg Dugg, Southend

John Lassiter campaign election night, Blackfinn, Uptown

Puerto Rican Festival, Plaza Fiesta, Carowinds

Firebird Statue (Disco Chicken) unveiling, Uptown

Bechtler Museum of Modern Art prepares to open, Uptown

Charlotte Checkers at Time Warner Cable Arena. Photo: James Willamor; view this photo on Flickr

Reports out of Raleigh indicate the Carolina Hurricane’s AHL farm club, the Albany River Rats, ”have been sold and will move to Charlotte.” The Albany Times-Union names the buyer as Michael Kahn, who currently owns the Charlotte Checkers.

Charlotte is currently home to the ECHL Checkers, what is considered a second-tier (AA) minor league team. The AHL is the highest level (AAA) of minor league hockey in the U.S. and Canada, with NHL teams often sending player up or down from the majors. The River Rats are currently the AHL affiliate of Raleigh’s Carolina Hurricanes.

According to Canes Country,

There are several benefits to having an in-state affiliate: speedier call-ups to the Triangle; easier access for Raleigh-based team management — and Canes fans — to the team and players; and further growth of hockey in the South.

It is unclear whether the Charlotte’s ECHL franchise will fold, or be sold or moved. It is also unclear if the River Rats will be renamed to the Checkers or something else.

This news comes after an October Charlotte Business Journal article indicating that the Charlotte Checkers were interested in a possible new arena tied to a sports complex in Matthews.

The Checkers currently play in Time Warner Cable arena along with the Charlotte Bobcats.