The Carolina Hurricanes' fathers are in town for the annual father/son team get-together. After the game tonight against the Montreal Canadiens, they will board the team plane and travel to Long Island to watch their boys play the Islanders on Saturday night. Not to jinx them, but in the past the team has been undefeated (4-0) during these events. Time to keep the streak alive! I'm sure that there will be lots more information about this and I'll post more as it becomes available.
Doesn't it seem like we just played the Canadiens? Oh yeah, well that's because we just did! Due to the NHL scheduling gurus exemplary work, the Canes are playing the Habs for the 3rd time already this year. As we all remember, the Canes lost to Montreal on opening night in OT, 3-2 but then beat the Habs back in Montreal for their home opener, 3-1. The Habs currently have a record of 4-2-2, with the same road record as they have at home. (2-1-1). Huet is scheduled to be in goal for Montreal and I expect that Cam Ward will be there tonight for the Hurricanes. There probably will be no roster changes from the Wednesday night game for Carolina.
In other news.....
A loyal reader of the blog commented about an article in The Sporting News with more information about the Erik Cole soccer injury incident. Come to find out, Scott Hartnell injured himself the same way last year in Nashville and he was out for 6 weeks. I wonder how many other injuries happen that don't go reported during this "harmless warmup"? A tip of the hat to Fred for sending that in! Speaking of Cole, he could be close to returning to action very soon.
The Charlotte Checkers have just entered into a "secondary affiliation" with the Hurricanes. The Canes are sending goalie Daniel Manzato to the Checkers on loan, similar to what they did with Kevin Nastiuk last year when they sent him to Las Vegas. The Checkers have been affiliated with the New York Rangers for a long time, could a change be in the near future? It certainly would benefit both organizations to work more closely together, at the very least.
Need a part-time job? The RBC Center and Hurricanes are looking for food and beverage workers for various events and games. Here is some information.
You have probably heard about how serious MRSA can be and how it has affected schools. The Hurricanes also are taking the disease seriously and equipment manager Wally Tatomir is taking special precautions. NBC17 ran a brief story about that.
One more thing, if you like statistics then don't forget about "The Whaler's" Hurricanes Hockey Report! He's got stats there that you didn't even know they kept stats on! Seriously, he does a great job and if you haven't seen it yet, you should check it out. The link is always listed on the left sidebar under "Canes Related Sites".
That's all I have for right now. If something comes up later today, I'll try to update. It should be another fun game tonight. TGIF, and Go Canes!
Everclear