Ghost Pirates' Savannah debut marks 'a new era of sports in our city'

For Savannah, pro hockey is a 20-year itch you need a long, curved hockey stick to scratch.

The Savannah Ghost Pirates play their home opener at 7 p.m. Saturday at Enmarket Arena. A minor league affiliate of the National Hockey League's Vegas Golden Knights, the Ghost Pirates are the first professional hockey franchise to call Savannah home.

But they aren't the first to flirt with the Hostess City.

The city has been courting a team since the early-2000s, when the success of a college club tournament, today known as the Savannah Hockey Classic, signaled area residents' interest in the sport. Another minor league, the Atlantic Coast Hockey League (ACHL), explored adding a Savannah team in 2003, even staging a series of regular season games at the Savannah Civic Center.

Negotiations between the ACHL and the City of Savannah failed, and the saga of building a new arena soon followed. That facility opened earlier this year with one committed tenant: A hockey team announced in January 2021 that came to be known as the Ghost Pirates.

Savannah Mayor Van Johnson, who's served on the council in some capacity throughout the city's long history with hockey, called the Ghost Pirates' debut “the start of a new era of sports in our city,

“The home opener will put an exclamation point on the construction of a brand new arena to serve as a home base,” Johnson said.

Fan anticipation has been steadily building since the franchise's launch nearly two years ago. Saturday's opener is a sellout, and the Ghost Pirates have sold approximately 3,500 season tickets in the 7,000-seat Enmarket Arena. Dozens of fans made the trip to Greenville, South Carolina for the team's first-ever game on Oct. 22.

“We’ve been talking about this team for almost two years and talking about hockey in Savannah forever," said Chris Baisden, a Pooler resident who attended the season opener in Greenville. "Now it’s real.”

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Savannah plays its first five games on the road. The Ghost Pirates are 4-0 headed into a Friday night game, also in Greenville. The two teams travel across the state afterwards to play the inaugural game in Savannah on Saturday.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Savannah Ghost Pirates play first home game at Enmarket Arena Saturday