Wade Minter ’97 had a busier summer than usual.
As the public address announcer for the Carolina Hurricanes of the National Hockey League, Minter usually ends his duties when the team’s season concludes. Normally, that means April or May. But this year, he was announcing
well into June. The Hurricanes rolled through the playoffs, soared into the finals and won the most iconic trophy in sports, the Stanley Cup.
“It was a crazy, off-the-hook playoff season,” Minter says. “It makes your summer a little shorter.”
The team was in Las Vegas for the Cup-clinching game, but the Hurricanes hosted a watch party at their home arena for their fans, and Minter was there, announcing.
“The building was packed, the fans were loud,” Minter says. “It was just crazy. When they won, I hugged my wife and we had a little champagne. But then I came home and went back to my real job the next day.”
Minter’s “real job” is founder and chief technology officer for Suggestion Ox, a human resources software company. But it’s a familiar theme for Minter in both his main career and his side quests to follow his interests as far as they take him. That inquisitive mindset brought him to both the tech world and announcing.
The 2026 Stanley Cup run is among the highlights of Minter’s announcing career. On top of his typical home game duties and the away game watch parties, Minter helped host the Hurricanes’ championship parade celebrations.
“At the end of the parade, we got onstage and worked the crowd for about half an hour with our arena host until the players were ready to come up,” Minter says. “I was speaking to an audience of 200,000 people. And walking down the parade route, I was seeing people peeking out of parking garages to get a better view. It was an all-time life experience.”
Minter credits his time at William & Mary as key to developing the confidence and curiosity needed to explore his eclectic passions.
Journalism was one of those passions. When Minter got to Williamsburg, he dove right into The Flat Hat. He also took the opportunity to explore various subjects in his coursework, taking a couple of classes in computer science. He liked them enough that he decided it would be his major.
“It was the very, very early days of the web, and I was learning HTML,” Minter says. “I built my little personal website and started putting a little bit of writing up there. I was like, ‘I think this web thing is going to turn into something.’”
His junior year, Minter combined those two interests, building the first website and email addresses for The Flat Hat. He then took the initiative on his own to create the first website for William & Mary Athletics.
“I was a big sports fan growing up, and I saw there was nothing online about W&M Athletics, so I thought that I could build something for them, too,” Minter says. “I hand-wrote a bunch of HTML and built it and took it to them. I was like, ‘Hey, I made you a thing,’ and they said, ‘Great, we don’t really know what this is, but it seems helpful.’”
Minter maintained the site through his senior year. But his work with W&M Athletics led to another opportunity that would open doors for him further down the road.
“I got my first opportunities in the public address space because I had built W&M Athletics this website,” Minter says. “They said that they had a couple sports that could use an announcer if I wanted to do it. And I said absolutely, I want to do it — this sounds great!”
In his last year on campus, Minter was the public address announcer for women’s soccer, women’s basketball and volleyball. It was a valuable experience for him, a crash course in learning how to announce sports he was less
familiar with.
“The lesson I took from that, that I ended up playing off of years later, is that every sport has a rhythm, and every sport has its own unique quirks,” Minter says. “It was a very foundational moment, and it came from being a computer science major and a sports fan and putting W&M Athletics online.”
Another sport he was less familiar with was hockey. As a kid growing up in Southside Virginia, he didn’t have regular exposure to the NHL, much less people who played the game.
He was introduced to hockey through his friends at William & Mary, many of whom grew up in Northern Virginia as Washington Capitals fans. The group often went to minor league hockey games, which opened his eyes to how fun the sport could be.
“For a couple years there, we would drive down to Norfolk to see the Hampton Roads Admirals, or up to Richmond to see the Richmond Renegades,” Minter says. “Once you get into the building and see it, and pick up on the rules, it’s addicting. It’s so fast, it’s so hard-hitting, it’s so exciting.”
After graduating from William & Mary, Minter bounced from Richmond to Philadelphia and, in 1999, to Raleigh, North Carolina, where he put down roots. That same year, the Carolina Hurricanes relocated from the Greensboro
Coliseum to a new arena in Raleigh. Minter attended the Hurricanes’ first game in their new city as a fan, solidifying his connection with the team.
In 2015, the Canes’ public address position opened. Minter, who had by then been a diehard fan for 16 years, applied.
“I auditioned on a whim,” Minter says. “I had a trial game during the preseason. I guess they liked what they heard, because they offered me the job.”
Over a decade later, he has never missed a home game. Minter can be heard bellowing his signature “Hurricanes GOAL!” call alongside the 18,000-plus Canes fans at Lenovo Center each time Carolina puts the puck in the back of the net.
Minter looks back with gratitude on his time at William & Mary. He stays involved with The Flat Hat, visiting the office in the Sadler Center when he’s back on campus. He also lent his announcing talents to the 2019 Homecoming Parade.
Minter’s journey would not have been possible without his persistent curiosity, which he attributes to his time in college.
“I’ve really benefited from the confidence to just try a bunch of weird stuff, and if some of it sticks and some of it doesn’t, it’s all going to be additive to the things that really matter,” Minter says. “Looking back at the decision to attend William & Mary — if there’s a pivotal moment that turned me into the person I am today, it’s that.”