Carolina Hurricanes General Manager Jim Rutherford confirmed earlier today that coach Peter Laviolette will indeed return behind the bench next season for Carolina. Rutherford seemed a bit surprised by all the speculation about the coach's future.
"This became a bigger issue than it needed to be, JR was quoted as saying. It seems like the general manager could have had something to do with that, but maybe he didn't read the papers or the online NHL news services which were speculating about Lavi's future.
With Quenneville and Wilson just getting the ax even after making the playoffs, was the media being over-zealous speculating about Laviolette, especially with Rutherford refusing to give him a vote of confidence for over a month?
Regardless, most fans will be happy with the news.
Rutherford also mentioned that he was still waiting to have meetings with Bret Hedican and Glen Wesley about their possible futures with the club.
In other news, Team Canada will be facing Team Russia for the gold medal in the World Championships in what should be a real barn-burner. Canada got by Sweden 5-4, while the Russians skunked Team Finland 4-0.
Finally, I'd like to thank everyone who left comments and sent me emails about my last article concerning ticket prices. I apologize that some of your comments didn't post properly, I need to update this template and will do so, sometime soon during this off-season.
It should go without saying but I'll say it anyway, that article was not an attempt to convince people whether or not to re-up for season tickets. It was meant to be a factual article, based upon the perceptions during the lock-out in relation to the actual price increases, as I described. (Granted, I may have ranted just a bit.)
Obviously, some people are upset about the increases, some not so much. If you are unhappy about the increases and do not let management know, they might assume that people don't mind very much and will continue with more increases in the future. But if people make enough of a stink about it this year, perhaps it will help management to think twice about it before instituting another increase next year? Who knows?
According to Kyle Prairie, people have been much more positive about the increases, than negative.
Just a reminder, I do answer any and all emails. (positive and negative) Just send them to canescountry@gmail.com.
AC DC