Poor Walt, he just can’t catch a break (and he’ll never live down his preseason suspension, either).

Image sent to me by Mae in San Jose.

You’ve all been waiting for this post, haven’t you?

Yeah.

Here’s the deal:

TO ST. LOUIS:

Carolina’s first-round pick in 2006
Toronto’s fourth-round pick in 2006 (the one we got for O’Neill)
Chicago’s fourth-round pick in 2007 (the one we got for Vrbata)
Mike Zigomanis
Jesse Boulerice
the rights to Magnus Kahnberg

TO CAROLINA:

Doug Weight
Erkki Rajamaki

Wow.

My thoughts:

Wow.

Do I think the ‘Canes overpaid for what may well turn out to be a rental? It certainly looks that way….however:

On one hand:

The Hurricanes acquire a hell of a playmaker. Not a Ron Francis, no–but somebody who can still set ‘em up quite well.

On the other hand:

The loss of Mike Zigomanis and Jesse Boulerice will hurt our depth, as will the loss of those draft picks.

But on the gripping hand….

Neither Ottawa nor Philly get the guy, and the Hurricanes are positioning themselves to go deep.

The 2006 draft is projected to be on the wimpy side once you get out of the Top 10–so the loss of the draft picks comes as no surprise to me, because JimR has a tendency to trade out of wimpy drafts and trade in to stronger ones. When the ‘Canes acquired Stephen Peat from Washington, Jesse Boulerice’s days were numbered because of his post-lockout struggles on the ice. His attack of the Stupids during the Hurricanes’ last game with the Crapitals effectively sealed his fate, so losing him was a foregone conclusion. Ziggy, though moving for great justice !!!, was pretty much at the end of his rope with the ‘Canes. He had to move for the sake of his development, and he can get some quality ice time in St. Loo. Magnus Kahnberg wasn’t going to ever be signed by the ‘Canes, so he was no great loss as far as I’m concerned. Rajamakki, if he comes back over to North America, will serve as depth in Lowell (which is not a bad thing).

In the final analysis, this is a very good trade for Carolina, especially since some of the pressure will be taken off our existing centers (and the burden of icetime will be taken off the Warchief somewhat) and the team will get a guy that is known to several of the players and the coach. It’s also a good trade for St. Loo, in the sense that they get some draft picks and depth guys to help rebuild the team in the wake of their continuing post-lockout fire sale.

So.

Tonight the Hurricanes pay tribute to one of the greatest (and classiest) players to ever play the game–Ron Francis. This is the guy who helped the ‘Canes gain a stronger foothold here in the Carolinas (after Kevin Dineen helped hold the team together during the turbulent Greensboro years), and who will forever be remembered as a Whalercane.

He also must have taken all the class with him when he left Hogtown, if Steve Simmons’ latest little gem from the Black Hole Sun is any example:

“Paul Maurice coached Jeff O’Neill for years in Carolina. Shouldn’t he have warned the Leafs about him?”

Wow. LeafsNation’s been coveting Jeffy O for years, they welcome him with open arms and all kinds of sympathy over the death of his eldest brother, and now that he turns out to not be the next Frank Mahovlich, they turn on him.

Wow, talk about your class.

Tonight the ‘Canes will be honoring somebody who’s the epitome of class–while somebody who was once a franchise cornerstone continues to struggle in a town that is infamous for eating their young and throwing class out the window at the drop of a puck.

Very sad.

Ay caramba.

So let’s see–the ‘Canes are at the top of the NHL, and have a surprisingly slack crowd against the Islanders on Thursday night. So of course the Idiot Brigade in the fanbase has commenced to whining that “we suck as fans” and engaging in the exact same shit that we’ve bitched about for years–calling this a bad market because the RBC isn’t sold out for every single game.

Just got back from the game and was disgusted with the showing of fans for the game.

Doesn’t the best in the NHL deserve more than that?

12,000 in attendance is an embarrassment. This organization should be getting worried about this market. What the hell would it be like if the Canes were 10-32 instead of 32-10? 6,000 or less? Ridiculous. The Canes need to do something. A 4 or 5 pack mini-plan would be a nice start. Every other team does something like this.

(And now we are going to hear from all those who have excuses why they can’t go to most of the games………no money, my dog died, I like in Oklahoma or Fayetteville, blah…..blah……blah). Go Canes………..and if you really care I’ll see you at the RBC EACH AND EVERY GAME!!!!!

And so on.

That last one is my favorite–that came from some “Sooper Sekrit Team Insider” who made veiled claims to have a line into the locker room and thus knows everything about the team.

Riiiight. Me? I just talk to people.

Look–Thursday’s attendance was teh sux0r. Nobody is denying this. But calling people bad fans because they can’t make every game? What? Screaming and crying for partial season ticket plans when the ‘Canes already offer them? Where was the cheering from these losers when the ‘Canes sold out against the St. Louis freaking Blues (on a Military Appreciation Day–which, btw, is what the Crapitals had when they had 17K in the house)?

Nowhere. That’s where they were.

Let me break it down for the Idiot Brigade: Going to every game does not make one a good fan. Not going to every game does not make one a bad fan. The fanbase needs time, period–or, as another person put it:

Hey, I grew up in Philadelphia in the 70s and they were the joke of the league in attendance as an “expansion club” for years until the Broad Street Bullies won the cup. There was talk that hockey would not survive in Philadelphia and that expansion should never have happened. Sound familiar???!!! Since then, you have to inherit season tickets to regularly see a Flyers game. The point is, it takes years of playoff appearances to kick start interest among casual fans and corporate sponsors. They start leagues and then youth start playing hockey instead of the traditional sports. That does not happen in seven years, particularly if the team is inconsistent AND is in an area where hockey was infrequently seen. To think that playing fantastic hockey for four months is suddenly going to pack the house every night is pretty shortsighted in my opinion. Would I like to see it, you bet! Do I expect to see it yet, no!

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

The other day, I received the following e-mail from a reader of mine (posted with his permission):

Hey AQ -

I’ve really enjoyed reading your blog, I share most of your opinions…
and some I don’t! But you have grown to be an authority of all
things ‘Canes IMO, so I’ve decided to ask you about a rather well-worn
subject.

You seem to have a take on why the Whalers moved the Carolina, and if
it’s not too much bother, I’d like to know your opinion.

So far, I’ve heard from some Whalers fans who feel it was an out-n-out
thieft, my brother who’s kinda Whalers fan who seems to believe the same
thing, and a fellow on the Yahoo messageboards who seems to be much more
Karmanos-friendly about the subject.

Thanks for your time and any reply you can render…

I was going to answer it in private e-mail, but decided to post about it here. This will be unpalatable to some who seem to want to paint Pete Karmanos as The Great Satan, but that’s not my problem. My information comes from people like Hartford Whalers season ticket holders and others who are privy to far more information than you or I. Believe it or don’t believe it–my sole interest has always been the hard truth, unflattering or uncomfortable as it may be.

That said:

In my honest opinion, the move didn’t necessarily need to happen–but it did, so here you go. When looking back at the move, there were three parties that contributed to what happened:

The State of Connecticut

The state legislature was slow in coming up with an arena deal. They came up with kind of a half-assed offer, but it was bogged down in a lot of politicking and so didn’t get very far, and was not helped by the fact that Uncle Pete was pretty slack in barracking for a deal. I suspect that he would have gladly agreed to an arena deal that he felt was right–but he didn’t want to put any actual work into it. I also suspect that his demand that he be reimbursed for all losses he had sustained since buying the Whalers was simply a bluff, and that had he gotten an arena deal comparable to the one he enjoys now at the RBC Center, he’d have backed down.

John Rowland, then-Governor of Connecticut:

Federal Bureau of Prisons Inmate #15623-014 was not a fan of hockey, and was only too happy to see the Whalers leave. His comments at the press conference after the move was announced were nothing more than crocodile tears. Rowland was of the opinion that UConn hoops players made better role models than guys like Kevin Dineen, Stu Grimson, Pat Verbeek, Ron Francis, and other Whalers players who did so much to help the community. He essentially told the Whalers not to let the door hit them even as he was publicly mourning their departure for the benefit of the voters, despite what revisionists on either side may say. This is the man who decided to mortgage Connecticut’s treasury in an attempt to win the Patriots away from Foxboro (though the Pats never intended to leave in the first place), and yet said “fuck you” to the professional sports franchise in his own backyard.

Peter J. Karmanos, Jr.

Pete’s reason for moving boils down to something pretty simple: he wanted a much better deal than he had at the Mall. Could he have gotten a better deal in Hartford? Certainly not at the Mall. The deal that Pete Karmanos has in the RBC Center is one of the best in hockey, if not in pro sports. Had the CT legislature been quicker, a little more on the ball, possessed of a lot more foresight and done their best to ego-stroke Pete into staying (something that, IMO, could have been accomplished despite apparent signs that Pete was planning to move the team all along), I honestly believe that the Whalers would still be in Hartford and I’d still be calling myself an Oilers fan. The man is impatient, has a tendency to be petty and let his ego get the better of him (Fedorov offer sheet, anyone?), tends to give in to his temper and pop off without thinking (and at what seems to be the most inopportune moments), and isn’t really possessed of all that much vision. How he became a billionaire is a mystery to me, seriously.

The Move Itself

The Hartford Whalers’ move to North Carolina was possibly one of the worst-handled moves in sports history–better than Bob Irsay’s midnight flight to Indianapolis and better than Norm Green’s flat-out lying to the people of Minnesota, but worse than Art Modell’s move of the Browns v1.0 to Baltimore. Pete could have milked the sympathy card for all it was worth by staying those last two years in Hartford and pointing to the Legislature’s foot-dragging on a new arena and Rowland’s indifference to it all as his reasons for deciding to move on, while wallpapering the Carolinas with a huge marketing blitz as the ESA (now the RBC Center) was being built. Fans could have gotten to watch Whalers games on the tube down here, the fans in Hartford would have been able to give their team a proper farewell, Whalers management would have had time to get their ducks in a row and get ready for the move, things could have gotten off to a much more auspicious start down here, and the pain would have been dulled as much as possible. Uncle Pete could have come out of it smelling like a rose rather than a stinking corpse lily if he’d just shown a little foresight and actually put some thought into things rather than pulling up stakes and spending two years taking a great big shit all over the people of the Triad (for you out-of-staters: Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point) and not doing a damn thing to promote the team down here other than to effectively say “we’re here, come see us!”

Pete Karmanos gave in to his temper and his impatience and his ego, and we got what we have today–an war between two fanbases that burned white-hot until about three or four years ago (though people like the Hartford Courant’s Jeff Jacobs do try to fan the flames every now and again), antipathy toward hockey in a good chunk of North Carolina (thanks to the Hurricanes’ horrible handling and treatment of the Triad during the Greensboro years), random embittered folk waging brushfire wars of lies and half-truths on various message boards and blogs in a futile attempt to exact some kind of pointless vengeance, and of course lots and lots of acrimony and needlessly hurt feelings on all sides. All because of a man who lets his own ego trip him up, a legislature that was slow to act, and a criminal in state office that aided and abetted it all.

And that’s my take.

Transitory though it is sure to be, I just want to gaze lovingly upon this for a while.

Dear Vancouver fans,

I had the pleasure of visiting your lovely town back in January of 2003, when I went to take in a Canucks game at GM Place–you may have seen me there with my Malik jersey on, or heard me yell “Give ‘em Hell, Harry!” when the puck dropped. Vancouver is a very lovely city, and the folks I met were very friendly, very welcoming, and just plain nice. Even the bums were polite! I loved my trip and look forward to visiting again–hopefully in June, for the Draft.

But I’m not writing this to wax poetic about the fun I had in Vancouver three years ago.

I’m writing it because I did not and do not like what I have seen from you fine folks during the WJCs–specifically, booing and jeering and basically being assy toward the American team every chance you got, even when they WEREN’T playing Team Canada. You want to be mad at Jack Johnson, fine. I understand completely, and I’m not all that happy with his little stunt either.

But come on, folks. There’s no need to bring signs saying “U SUCK USA”, chanting “USA SUCKS”, “GO AWAY USA” and basically treating the visitors from south of 49 like crap. There’s no excuse for it. If the fans in Grand Forks had treated the Canadians that way last year, I know damn good and well that all y’all would have been up in arms over it and screaming and crying about the “classless American fans” and calling for another burning of the White House (don’t think we’ve forgotten about 1812).

Well guess what–you guys are being classless Canadian fans, and giving a black eye to your fellow Canadians. Don’t give me a load of shit about rivalry and patriotism and whatever other excuse you think justifies your horrible conduct–if it’s not cool for us south of the border to boo the Canadian team, then it’s just as uncool for all y’all north of the border to boo the American team. You can’t have it both ways, and don’t even try to justify your assy behaviour to me because I’m not hearing it. Wrong is wrong, classless is classless, and you folks need to just knock it the hell off.

Sincerely,

An upset American fan

(I know, I said to let it go a couple days ago. But it’s just gotten so ridiculous now that I just couldn’t let it go.)