Random Thoughts - Pre Playoffs Edition

Wow, what a difference a month makes. Who in God's green earth would have thought that the Canes would be fighting for home ice in the postseason, much less clinching a playoff birth with several games remaining in the reggie season? What a ride it has been for this team and the fans. Together, they've been through a river of doodie and came out somehow smelling like roses.

- I've been to the majority of the home games over this stretch and it has been some of the most fun I've ever had. The Rangers game from Thursday 4/2 during the third period in particular was an extremely memorable occasion. The 3rd period as Brindy and LaRose scored seconds apart was extreme elation and it gave me the shivers as the entire building was shaking from crowd response alone. My ears were ringing all night after the game and a little still the following morning. It would have been interesting to see the 'ol decibel meter during that ruckus. That's what its all about, dude.

- Months ago, I was at a game - maybe it was the Maple Leafs, can't really remember. But I was wearing one of my Brind'amour jerseys as he was still in his sucktastic slump. Some fans of the visiting team who were enjoying their adult beverages perhaps a bit too much were having fun yelling at me that it's time for Rod to hang up the skates and retire. I just laughed it off, did the 'ol cheers to them and carried on. I had the same thoughts of course and others probably shared the sentiment. But all along, I kept saying this:

"I don't care if he does have the worst +/- in the NHL, if your team is in the playoffs - you want a Rod Brind'amour on the team, warts and all."

Halle-lu-jah that he turned it around as he couldn't have picked a better time. As soon as he kicked his game back in gear, the team followed suit and every team they played - they ripped them a new one. Welcome back Roddy. Glad you're along for the ride and knowing your style - you'll sign a contract extension to play well into your late 40's.

- Chad LaRose is all that is man. Loved his "Day In The Life" that aired on the NHL Network too. He could have his own reality show and it would blow American Idol and Dancing With the Stars ratings away. Because many of you already know this, but when Chad LaRose is on a breakaway - he doesn't have to deke, the ice just shifts accordingly out of fear alone. Oh yeah, and he's about to get PAID this summer, son.

- OK - time to stop blowing sunshine up your butts for a minute. Lost amidst all the happy winning good times here lately - Sergei Samsonov has been stinking it up. We know enough based on his history that he's going to have hot and cold spells. He's only got two points in his past five games with an even +/- when the majority of the team has benefited from the beatdowns of other teams. Beyond the stats - if you just watch him he appears to have no confidence, turns the puck over and looks real loose trying to connect on passes. At what point do we worry about this? I know he can be as flaky as all hell, but damn. When Cullen returns to the line-up - do you keep Sammy in the line-up?

- Back to the sunshiney thoughts. I have no problem with admitting when I'm wrong about something. Though I never really came out and said that the Paul Maurice hiring was a terrible idea, a certain other writer for this blog did in more ways than one. I was certainly skeptical of Mo - but he has earned a new contract and proved many of the doubters wrong. East of Here - got anything to say in response?

- In regards to playoffs tickets, I'm thrilled that they are selling out so quickly. I decided in March to re-up for next year's season ticket package (and "iced my price" for the following two seasons). With that happening, the budget isn't ready to allow playoff ticket purchases. While I shall do my best to attend one game in the 1st round, I have no problem with enjoying the games on the home TV with good friends and good beverages.

- For those who may have missed it: I had the pleasure of interviewing the lovely Carrie Milbank over at Barry Melrose Rocks. Do check it out please.

I leave you today with a NSFW, yet side-splittingly funny Billy Mays "KABOOM!" re-dub. I've already shown it to many of my friends but I just can't get enough of it. Enjoy:

Random Thoughts as Spring tries to spring

Neglect: to pay little or no attention to

Sure I've neglected COI but this gig pays so well ya know...

- Pray to Great Oden's Raven that the Devils and Marty Brodeur take care of business against Chicago tonight. Get that damn record out of the way and go out and celebrate tonight! Get plastered drunk, all of you! You deserve it! Hockey game in Raleigh the next day? What hockey game in Raleigh?

-After what seems like 5 straight weeks of rain in the Raleigh area - the sun attempted to come out today. It apparently is supposed to be a beautiful Spring-like day tomorrow so if you can get out and tailgate - DO IT and enjoy!

-plz2be checking out the new digs for Barry Melrose Rocks over at Bloguin. So orange, yet so refreshing.

If anyone of you know who is responsible for this gem:
Please fess up or shoot me an email at CarolinaOnIce@gmail.com. Brilliant stuff.

Peter Karmanos: 2009 Classless Asshat Award Winner

You know, suffering through a losing streak is hard on anybody's fandom. Watching your star players stand around on the ice while the other team blows you out of the building makes you want to scream. But just when you thought it couldn't get any worse in Raleigh, our absentee owner suddenly decided to turn into a Grade-A Classless Asshat for no apparent reason.

In case you somehow missed it, Peter Karmanos was the keynote speaker at the Greater Raleigh Sports Council's quarterly meeting today. Apparently, he decided that it would be a good idea to come out and throw Peter Laviolette under the bus in front of god and everybody. And for no apparent reason. WTF?

You can find the whole article here:

http://blogs.newsobserver.com/canes/karmanos-laviolette-had-to-go

I won't parse it all out, but I do want to point out a couple of things. First of all, there was this lovely quote:

"I didn't like our coach," Karmanos said. "His public persona and his
private persona were two different things."

Well, when you consider that Laviolette always seemed to be a really nice guy in public, the only way to interpret that quote is that PK is calling Laviolette an asshole. Worse, PK then insinuates that Laviolette was the reason that Eric Belanger sucked while he was here. (Funny, I always thought it was his lackluster effort and lack of production, but what do I know...). He then makes the following idiotic quote about Belanger (among others):

"He's now a key part of the Minnesota team," Karmanos said. "And that happened
with quite a few players and you just can't afford to lose those kind of
assets."

Seriously? Isn't it JR's job (with PK's blessing) to determine which assets we keep or lose? And who exactly traded Belanger? That's right. JR traded him. And for what? Big Slow Vagisil - ... I mean Big Joe Vasicek. Let's face facts. It was evident from day one that Belanger didn't want to be here. Or at least he sure played like he didn't. And if Belanger is so damn good, then why isn't PK blasting JR for not getting more than Big Slow Washed-up-Czech for him in that trade?

And what other assets did Laviolette lose? Craig Adams? Kevyn Adams? Anson Carter? Jeff Hamilton? Dan LaCouture? John Grahame? That Melichar guy? I guess JR's trading of Andrew Ladd, Erik Cole, Cory Stillman and Mike Commodore doesn't count as losing assets. Or maybe JR's errors are overlooked because of his past acquisitions of such sterling talent like Jan Hlavac and Jamie Storr. . .

I just don't get it. Asshole or not, Peter Laviolette brought the Stanley Cup to Carolina. You'd think that a Cup win would be worth some serious respect from the man that profited most from it. Or at least you'd think it would be worth enough to keep PK's classless piehole shut. For an organization that prides itself in being "like a family", you'd think they wouldn't be trashing the guy who actually made this team (and market) relevant for the first time in years. Though, I guess this organization is analogous to a family; but in the "let's pull the plug on Grandma so we don't have to spend our inheritance to pay for her hospice care" kinda way.

On a final note, I'm not a former Harvard teammate of Jason Karmanos, so nobody told me why PK felt the need slam Lavi. I can only give you my opinion as to why I think he decided Laviolette needed to be trashed today. My impression is that this reeks of desperation. Basically, this team has underachieved for 2 and a half years. When that happens, you can either blame the players or blame the coach. Since blaming the players means blaming your GM and yourself (as the people who ultimately make the sign/trade decisions), it is much easier to blame the coach. So they fired Lavi as the scapegoat for the players not producing. And rather than hiring a new coach, they brought back Paul Maurice to save some serious coin. As a result, the Canes are still sucking on a nightly basis. We are still hovering just below mediocrity (sorta like Toronto the last 2 years - go figure . . .). The coaching change has been a net wash at best. We're really doing no better (win/loss) than we were under Laviolette. So PK's either got to blame himself and JR for the non-productive talent, or for their bargain-bin coaching hire: Paul Maurice. You can bet that neither of those are going to happen. So to deflect the blame from their failings, he throws Lavi under the bus.

Feel free to disagree with my rationale for this boondoggle if you want. But in my opinion, trashing Laviolette for no reason was uncalled for, and just plain classless. I lost a lot of respect for PK and this organization today.

As the old saying goes, Mr. Karmanos: "It takes one to know one."

Asshole indeed.

We're boned. Seriously...

I took a couple of days to cool off and think things over before I posted about the Hurricanes' recent tragic turn of events. Only I didn't cool off. And after some thought, I am not afraid to say it:

We're totally and deeply boned!!!

Now before any potential JR kool-aid drinkers get their panties in a wad, let me give the disclaimer: I loved Peter Laviolette as a coach. And I hated to see him fired. But I also think that something had to change, and maybe it was the right time for him to move to Tampa [Ironically, Rick Tocchet is giving 3 to 1 odds that this is where Lavi will end up]. And to be perfectly clear, I don't fault Paul Maurice for this. It's nothing personal. I think he is a nice guy and I can't blame him for accepting a coaching job rather than sitting around taking VCR repair courses at Regina Technical Institute and Beauty College. BUT...

WTF? Paul Maurice? Seriously? Why would they do that to us? I mean, damn! It makes no sense! I could understand if they'd threatened this in the week or so before season ticket invoices were due:

"Dear STH, if you do not renew your package by [applicable date], we will fire Peter Laviolette and hire Paul Maurice so you won't be able to enjoy the games on television either..."

But dammit, they already got my money! And, if they just wanted to be sadistic, they've got my address on my season ticket holder file. They know where I live. They could've just sent some random employee to come to my house, ring my doorbell, and then kick me square in the balls when I opened the door. It would've felt the same to me, but they would have at least gotten the satisfaction of seeing the shocked and pained expression on my face when they did it. But this? This is just senseless abuse.

And then, to add insult to injury, they don't even come out and say what they really mean. The least they could do is be honest with us and release a statement that says:

Dear loyal season ticket holder,

Thanks for your hard earned money. Instead of using it to improve the team, Mr. Karmanos has decided to buy that private island in the Bahamas he's always wanted. And a Porsche. We hope you enjoy the return of the boringest hockey ever played. If you're a good boy and don't boo, we'll paint Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart's numbers on the Zambonis and have the arena staff drive them in a counter-clockwise pattern during the intermission so you'll feel more at home. If you don't like it, go f**k yourself.

Sincerely yours,

The Management.

Nope. We aren't so lucky. To add insult to injury, they (the team, the NHL, the media) are spinning this like crazy; as if we are too stupid to see that this is nothing more than another cheapskate maneuver designed to pocket a greater percentage of our cash. They still believe that we are just a bunch of ignorant, inbred NASCAR fans who won't notice the difference. Don't believe me? Look around. Nearly every article contains this line (or one nearly identical):

"Maurice, 41, is the winningest coach in franchise history with 268 wins in 674 regular-season games."

Obviously, they believe that we are unable to do simple arithmetic. Unfortunately for them, I lernt my cipherin' in skool back in da holler, and I can subtract 268 from 674. And I can even subtract the 99 frigging ties and see that there's 307 losses to go along with those 268 wins. Yes, technically, he is the winningest coach in franchise history. But he's also undeniably the LOSINGEST COACH IN FRANCHISE HISTORY!!!

If "Mo" had more wins than losses, then I wouldn't bitch about the semantics of this. But when the guy has lost more games than he's won, it's pretty damn cheeky to pick the adjective 'winningest' over 'losingest', when both are legitimately on the table.

And they are also trying to whitewash the whole thing by saying that they are going to continue to play an aggressive and exciting style of hockey. Here's the quote:

"We are not going to try to change the identity of the team in terms of how it plays, because it's built a certain way," Maurice said. "It's built with speed and it's built to be aggressive. Because of that we're going to try to continue that. " (Emphasis added).

Really? That's good to know. So, 2 days into this glorious goat f**k, let's see what that statement really translates into:

"Before practice Friday, Maurice’s second with the team, the Hurricanes discussed their defensive positioning in the neutral zone, taking an approach Eric Staal called “not so aggressive, . . .”

Can you say "trap" and "dump and chase" boys and girls? I thought you could.

I could say a lot more, but I've already said enough. I can only hope that by some cosmic miracle, this works out for the Canes. But I'm not optimistic. Playing lockdown hockey with a bunch of "offensive defensemen" doesn't inspire my confidence. And if Thursday's game was any indicator of what is to come, it shouldn't inspire yours either.

Can Kristen Laviolette stay if Peter has to go?

Peter Laviolette gets canned this morning. Shock and awe prevails. I'll miss Coach Lavi and wish him the best. I'll also certainly miss his lovely wife Kristen.

Replaced by Paul Maurice? Really? Is that the best choice?

Reaction thoughts will be posted tonight.

The Leafs Are Falling

It's got to be tough as a Toronto Maple Leaf fan. That sympathy won't last past 7:30 tonight for Caniac Nation. With MTL, NYI, and Carolina all competing for the final playoff spot, the Leafs once again are on the outside looking in. Our canes are rocking right now, and Cason's skepticism department is losing steam with each game played.

Let's hope Coach Mo, Jeff O'Neill, and Lucky B don't have that '02 come from behind magic in them anymore.



Yes, that's the most recent of their championships.