[bright upbeat music] - [Kyle] Hamilton kind of spoke to us and we really liked his spots.

He was the only one with spots in his litter.

- We got him when we had only been dating, I don't know, nine months.

And he became obsessed with this idea of getting a pig.

And really, it was a joke between him and his friends.

And, of course, as soon as I saw them, I was like, "Oh, my gosh, okay."

And he sat in my lap the entire way home and he was like our little baby.

I mean, he cuddled with me every night until he was too big to.

[bright upbeat music continues] Yeah, I mean, he has his grumpy moments, but, overall, he wants to be loved.

I mean, pigs are very affectionate.

- [Kyle] He's definitely very smart.

Twirl, twirl, twirl.

He was a very social urban pig and we took him to a lot of different Raleigh establishments, Breweries.

He's been to two mayor swearing in ceremonies as a guest of honor.

He's just always had this social life, and I think that all just kind of clicked together.

That would eventually be the unofficial mascot of the Carolina Hurricanes.

[announcer shouting indistinctly] [spectators cheering] My name's Kyle Eckenrode, and I'm the pig dad, and my home is Raleigh, North Carolina.

[bright upbeat music fades] One of our favorite Hamilton experiences was game seven of the 2019 playoffs when we went to DC.

The Canes at the time had never won a game seven in DC.

Everybody kept asking all day, "Are you guys going to game seven?

You going to game seven?

We need this lucky pig there."

Last second I said, "You know what, this is once in a lifetime.

Screw it, let's do it."

So as we started driving up, I get a call from the sports editor from the Washington Post.

He said, "Well, just so you know, if you bring an exotic animal onto the capitol grounds, they can be confiscated."

And I was like, "Weird."

So I got really nervous and at one point we went up to the Washington Monument and security guards started to approach us.

And I thought, "Oh no, this is not good."

And I was like, "Are we gonna be in trouble here?"

And they were like, "Why would you be in trouble?"

They were like, "This is the least weird thing we've seen on the DC grounds."

So I realized this Washington Post guy was trying to scare us from bringing the lucky pig up to DC.

- We did a lap around the arena.

We made sure that the luck was present.

- So that game went into double overtime, and we scored and won, and it was over.

That really cemented his legacy.

♪ Once we took our trip up to Washington DC, a lot of people really started catching onto this.

Then they realized this was their pig and this was their team.

Yeah, it was pretty wild.

We'd wake up each day to news vans, everybody wanted to get the scoop on what Hamilton was doing next, where he was going next.

And when they first invited us into the stadium, they literally rolled out the red carpet and they took us through the VIP entrance, which then became the very important pig entrance.

It was different and something fun that nobody had ever done before.

[person cheering] - I mean, Kyle is a marketing genius.

Just the little things that he came up with to really encourage it all to happen.

- We knew we had this big following online, and so I had Hamilton pin buttons made, and I would post before a game, like, "Hey, if you yell out..." Around Thanksgiving we did Eat More Turkey.

So we started this whole thing where people in the parking lots would just be screaming, "Eat more Turkey."

And we'd go around and hand out buttons and stuff.

- He just really believed in Hamilton and the Hurricanes and wanted that, I think, to be a really big part of our family.

[upbeat music fades] - Things did change when Parker came, and Hamilton is semi-retired a bit, talk about that a little bit.

- He was still small when all of this first started.

As you can see, he's not as small anymore.

- Yeah, when we were doing it, he could jump into the truck and I think he probably still could, but we've built him a ramp now that allows him to get in and out of the vehicle.

I think Hamilton's happier too.

He just gets to sleep a lot more and spend a lot more time in his own area.

- [Karoline] Yeah, but less treats too.

I think he really liked all the treats.

I mean, he'd go through a whole bag of carrots.

[relaxing music] He sleeps in the sunroom.

He has an auto feeder twice a day, and he roams the yard for the pomegranates, persimmons, nuts.

I mean, we've got so much fruit in the yard, figs.

He will live a very, very happy, fulfilled life here.

- You know, when I think about you guys had no idea, it just kind of took on a life of its own, the Hamilton persona just took on a life and you all kind of were hanging on and having fun doing really a lot of PR work.

- Yeah, I mean, for us it was like, I enjoyed it, because I got to sign an NHL contract with the Canes and living out that dream, but then people were so excited and so happy to see him.

I always said if we made one person smile, we did our job.

So it was fun, it makes me emotional.

[relaxing music fades] [upbeat music] ♪