WLOS: Asheville Hockey League returns to the mountains after Helene displacement

(WLOS) - Hockey League is back in the land of sky after being displace to Greenville due to Hurricane Helene."

"We've been around for 25 years. And this year is our 25th year celebration," said Asheville Hockey League President, Anthony Cerrato.

AHL doesn't yet have their full league back in the mountains. The new temporary park is for their youth, while the adults are still making the trips to Greenville.

"This is exactly what we expected for the space. We wanted to get the kids back because without the kids, we have no future. Eventually, all adults age out. We've just been surviving, keeping people in the sport. We've been in Greenville for, probably going on now, the past year." said Adult Commissioner, Daniel Dean.

"When we lost Carrier Park, we were scrambling first to make sure the community was at first good, at a human level," said Youth Commissioner, Justin Kaiser.

"Then I drove by the bridge quite honestly, six plus months ago. Kept driving back, dropping my kids off at school saying, 'we're going to play hockey there.'"

"We have a youth league, but also an adult league, said Cerrato. "There's three divisions in adult. A,B, and C, and the C players, there's some seniors [high school] in there as well. So it's kind of cool. We go from, little ones, I have these five-year-old twins, and then my son plays in the A League, who is a grown adult now.

The league lost a significant amount of their participants, and so many couldn't make the constant trips out of state.

"Our goal as a league is to get everybody playing, not just the youth," said Justin. "We want to get the adults playing as well. That's super important to us, as the adults are still traveling to Greenville. I actually saw then yesterday, during a tournament.

"Griffin donated the porta potty, Silverline donated all these pipes. Ishmel did the mural down there, local graffiti artist. Sherman-Williams donated all the paint. Hundreds of hours donated here and people walking by. It was purpose. It was amazing to give purpose to people and help with the efforts."

Getting their new park up and active in the River Arts District hasn't just been a local effort. The Carolina Hurricanes donated $75,000 in efforts to aid the league to a place they were before. The league is currently working with the city for a new, more permanent park to bring the adults and more of all ages, back on skates in Asheville..