An artillery salvo from exile

I'm not breaking my self-imposed exile, but I did want to quickly mention something:

On March 1st, the Canes take on Tampa here in Raleigh. After the game, two "local" adult rec league teams will play for an hour - one from Raleigh, one from Wilmington. The Canes are calling this promotion the "Rink of Dreams". Anyway, the Raleigh team - the Ice Hawks - is the team I play for. So any of you who are at that game can see and ridicule us for free. It'll be fun.

I'm going to complain...

OK, the Caniac carnival is this Sunday, followed by a preseason game against the Washington Capitals. Hurrah! I have season tickets (two), but I would like to take my daughter with me in addition to my wife. That means I need a third ticket, which means standing in line, which means that even if I decide to go out to the RBC Center and wait in line to get tickets, said ticket will be nowhere near my current ones.

I called to see if they can help me out and the succinct answer was "No". So I'm faced with standing in line, which is something I have a deep-seated aversion to, or not taking the whole family to the game. I guess I'll talk it over with my wife and we'll figure out what we're going to do.

I'm back

Wow, for such a slow time a bunch has happened since I've gone on vacation.

Tom Barrasso is now the director of goaltender development, which seems to be a wordy title to me.

John Forslund started a new blog on WRAL. I'll add that to the list of links momentarily. He says that Hedican looks great and Tanabe may be in camp without a contract on a try-out basis. I think he should be on the team, but that's just my opinion.

More importantly, the ice is down.

And more important than that - I got my tickets.

Of course, most prominently on my mind is whether or not the director of my hockey league will schedule a league-wide bye on opening night. Wednesday is when I play my league games and I think a lot of players will be at the RBC Center instead of the Ice House. Six-on-six can be a bit exhausting.

Tumbleweed

Not much really going on these days in Canes' country. Cason made a lot of good points concerning the sports editor at the N&O and the Canes coverage in the off-season. I won't rehash anything he said (just read his blog - it's that damned good) but really just lament the lack of anything. I get more Canes news from the search feed in my right nav than I do from the local paper.

Between the whole Nolan/border thing (which is just ridiculous) and Staal's "legal issues", there just hasn't been a lot of buzz lately about the 'Canes. Speaking of Cason (to go back to that), he brings up some marketing questions that I'm going to rephrase for my own uses. "Where's the buzz?"

The most I see at any time, other than at games or scheduled player appearances, is water cooler talk. When I worked for IBM (and then, shortly for the People's Republic of Computers), we would talk about it at work all the time. At my current company it's the same - we talk about the Canes when we pass each other in the hall or we're hanging around chatting. You see local businesses with Hurricanes posters and pictures of players, but it could still be more.

Long term I think the Youth Hockey initiative is the right way to go. Get them playing and they'll be fans of the game. I have yet to meet someone who gets out on the ice and plays around who then, afterward, says "Man, this sucks."

Still, a lot of the times when the organization has the players do something, it comes off as clumsy. The appearances at the Wolfpack home football games are cool in theory, but end up being a bit clunky in practice. Have the Canes subsidize hockey programs at the local schools, for example.

As for marketing, it's kind of a catch 22. The guys need to improve their profile and be seen around town. They need to get into the paper not just for what they're doing on the ice, but for what they're doing around town (not involving peeing in parking lots). I'm rambling at this point and it's getting late, but those are my thoughts on the issue.

Erik Cole is an attention whore

OK, that's not fair and, strictly speaking, probably not true. Still, just about 50% of the articles coming up on my search page lately seem to be concerning Mr. Cole. I'm beginning to think that Eric Staal's bachelor party debacle was just an attempt to steal a little bit of the spotlight from his line mate. Here's a hint Eric: the wedding is about the bride. Suck it up. (And congrats).

I mean he has a golf tournament in Oswego (with video) and he just started a new charity called the Erik Cole Dream Big Foundation. How much attention does he need?!

In all seriousness, the golf tournament (the Erik Cole Score For Oswego Golf Tournament) is an interesting idea: proceeds from the tournament go to local youth hockey, helping families pay registration fees, etc. The Hurricanes are doing something like that with the CYAH, and I think every penny they invest there will pay dividends down the road with fan support.

So, we're done...

It appears, according to the N&O, that JR is done tinkering for the moment. OK, so where does that leave the Canes right now? Here is a possible lineup that would keep scoring depth down to three lines; four if Hamilton and LaRose have some chemistry.

First Line: Eric Staal, Erik Cole, Cory Stillman
Second Line: Rod Brind'Amour, Andrew Ladd, Justin Williams
Third Line: Matt Cullen, Scott Walker, Ray Whitney
Fourth Line: Jeff Hamilton, Craig Adams, Chad LaRose

Top Six Defense: Bret Hedican, Glen Wesley, Niclas Wallin, Mike Commodore, Frantisek Kaberle, Tim Gleason

Utility/Extras: Trevor Letowski, Dennis Seidenberg, some prospect who has been playing well

Strengths: Scoring depth at forward, Shootouts (Cullen, Hamilton, and Whitney would be my first three), Faceoffs (Brind'Amour and Cullen)
Weaknesses: Depth on defense - I'm not confident in the ability of Hedican and/or Wesley to make it through this season intact. Who is behind them and ready to step up should they go down? Casey Borer? Brett Carson? Jamie McBain? I don't know enough about them to be confident that they'll be able to step up any time soon. Seidenberg is serviceable, but only just. Unless we kiss and make up with Babchuk, we're an injury or two away from a scary situation.

We could always re-sign Tanabe, who I really think played pretty well last year, despite numerous detractors. Sadly, that would make me feel a little bit better about the defense situation; and that's saying something in itself.

Moving slowly

Not really much going on in Hurricane-land. We're just waiting for either some more player movement or training camp, whichever comes first. Personally, I think it will be the latter.

Current Hurricanes Roster

Player	Pos	Age	Actual	07-08	08-09	09-10	10-11	11-12
			Cap Hit	Salary	Salary	Salary	Salary	Salary
Forwards			27.109
Staal, Eric	C	22.7	4.5	4.5	5	RFA
Cole, Erik	L	28.7	4	4	4	UFA
Brind'Amour, Rod	C	36.9	3.6	4	4	3	3	UFA
Williams, Justin	R	25.8	3.5	3.5	3.5	3.5	3.5	UFA
Ladd, Andrew	L	21.6	1.834	0.984	RFA
Stillman, Cory	L	33.5	1.75	1.75	UFA
Walker, Scott	R	34	2.5	2.5	2.5	2.5	UFA
Whitney, Ray	L	35.2	3.55	3.55	3.55	3.55	UFA
Letowski, Trevor	R	30.2	0.8	0.8	UFA
Adams, Craig	R	30.2	0.6	0.6	0.6	UFA
Larose, Chad	C	25.3	0.475	0.5	RFA
Hamilton, Jeff	C	29.8	0.8	0.8	0.8	UFA
Defencemen			11.046
Hedican, Bret	D	36.9	2.432	2.432	UFA
Kaberle, Frantisek	D	33.7	2.2	2.2	2.2	2.2	UFA
Wallin, Niclas	D	32.4	1.725	1.725	1.725	1.725	UFA
Commodore, Mike	D	27.7	1.25	1.3	UFA
Wesley, Glen	D	38.8	1.4	1.4	UFA
Gleason, Tim	D	24.4	1.175	1.175	RFA
Hutchinson, Andrew	D	27.3	0.475	0.5	UFA
Seidenberg, Dennis	D	26	0.389	0.85	RFA
Goaltenders			4.067
Grahame, John	G	31.8	1.4	1.4	UFA
Ward, Cam	G	23.3	2.667	2	2.5	3.5	RFA
Cap Hit			42.222
Cap Space			7.778
Average Age			29.81
Players Signed			22

Note: I didn't include Leighton (I don't have his contract details on hand and I think he'll be in the AHL anyway). The ages are calculated up to today.