'Cane Do
By Jake Duhaime
Jun 22, 2006, 14:11
 |
| Sorry, Canada, but the South has risen again. |
There’s really nothing finer than the Cup in Carolina.
Well, unless your Canadian, or from Hartford, or any other “northern” NHL city that’s ticked off the Stanley Cup lies south of the Mason-Dixon for the second straight season.
Nobody disputes the fact that the Carolina Hurricanes weren‘t deserving of the NHL’s ultimate prize. They played with heart. They’re extremely likeable. And they overcame plenty of adversity along the way; whether it was coming back to beat Montreal, Eric Cole’s neck injury or winning two frantic, intense seventh games that earned them the Stanley Cup.
But the fans? Those Caniacs who didn’t even wait a decade for this moment? That might be a different story.
It’s been 45 long and painful years since the Chicago Blackhawks last hoisted Lord Stanley’s Cup. It’s been a four-decade wait in Toronto and 34 years in Boston. New Yorkers have Mark Messier to thank for ending their 54-year drought in 1994. They’d be sitting at 66 years and counting if it wasn’t for him.
In two of these three cases, ownership is clearly to blame. Bill Wirtz (Chicago) and Jeremy Jacobs (Boston) are arguably two of the worst owners in all of professional sports. Most recently selling out their own fans in two large-market, once-proud NHL cities, while crying about their small-market status.
While half of the NHL’s Original Six are currently marred in Stanley Cup droughts in excess of three decades, six of the past 14 Stanley Cup finalists have been in “Southern” markets. Three of those teams, Dallas in 1999, Tampa Bay in 2004 and Carolina in 2006, ended up winning it all. Two of those teams, Dallas and Carolina, made multiple trips to the finals during that span.
All of this really seems to tick off those die-hard hockey fans in the Northeast, Great Lakes and Canada.
Speaking of droughts, it’s been 13 years and counting since a Canadian team last won the Stanley Cup. Since Montreal won their 23rd Stanley Cup in 1993, Canadian teams are 0-3 in the Stanley Cup Final; all three times -- Vancouver in 1994, Calgary in 2004 and Edmonton in 2006 -- losing the seventh game.
Meanwhile, the Avalanche have won two titles during that span. When the franchise ditched Quebec City for Colorado in 1995, they took a budding nucleus of Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg with them. They won Lord Stanley in their inaugural season in Denver, sweeping (gasp) a third-year expansion team from Florida. Five years later, Colorado won a second Stanley Cup by beating New Jersey in seven games. Coincidentally enough, the Devils had ditched Denver two decades earlier for East Rutherford, N.J. and the spacious confines of the Meadowlands Sports Complex.
I wonder what Gary Bettman and the NHL higher-ups were thinking while watching over yesterday’s Stanley Cup celebration in Raleigh. 30,000 fans watched their hockey heroes parade around the RBC Center parking lots in trucks and SUVs. Are they happy that the sport is slowly, but surely growing in southern markets like Raleigh, Dallas and Glendale, Arizona? Or would they have preferred to see Philly and Detroit?
There is certainly a market for the NHL in Raleigh. What was most impressive about the Canes celebration wasn’t the 30,000 that braved the oppressive North Carolina heat, but how young those 30,000 were. In a region where snow and ice are virtually nonexistent, the sport is growing at a rapid pace while youth hockey registration is booming and new facilitates are popping up all over the place.
That’s the real benefit of the Hurricanes’ Stanley Cup title. Granted, ice hockey will never match the lore of ACC rivalries, but if the Canes’ Stanley Cup run hooked the next generation of hockey fans in the process, and maybe that’s a bigger victory than seeing some Canadian team ending a 13-year Stanley Cup drought.
Jake Duhaime covered the 2006 Olympic Winter Games for Atomic Sports Media. He can be reached at jake.duhaime@atomicsportsmedia.com
© Copyright by Atomic Sports Media, Inc.