Goodbye, Farewell and Amen

I’m not much for writing about myself. In fact, I’ve put this post off for more than a week, partly because I couldn’t find a good spot to drop it on the schedule, but mostly because I really hate writing about myself, and doubly so when it’s a farewell.

But there’s no use in dancing around it, so let’s just get down to business: I’ve decided that the time is right for me to step down from managing Canes Country.

For the past three and a half years, I’ve been a stay at home dad. It began as a necessity - my daughter was in a half-day pre-kindergarten and while I loved my job, daycare for the second half of the day was going to consume a significant chunk of my paycheck. Add to that the fact that my job’s work schedule was a real annoyance, and the decision to stay home basically made itself.

Once kindergarten started, and she was in school all day, it became more a convenience than a necessity. I had the best of both worlds: flexibility to provide for my family while having enough free time to really devote to managing Canes Country.

But to everything, there is a season. My daughter is now a second grader. She doesn’t need as much supervision anymore, and my wife is now working at home all the time, so the necessity of needing to be there for my daughter after school is diminished. As with many others, the past year has caused me to reevaluate my life and what I’m doing with it, and I decided that the time was right to go back into the working world if I found the right fit.

And I believe I have; ironically, I’ll be working for my daughter’s school. (She can’t get rid of me that easily!)

But with the start of something new comes the end of other things, most prevalently managing Canes Country. I cannot begin to express how much I have loved this site, and it will always have a special place to me. It ran the gamut: I saw some really terrible teams and I saw teams no Hurricanes fan will ever forget. I have reported on an ownership change, the hiring of two new general managers and five coaches, last-second wins and last-second heartbreakers. I will never, ever forget the rush of adrenaline I experienced in the media room of Capital One Arena when Brock McGinn scored in Game 7, or the emotion that I and countless others experienced when Petr Mrazek screamed “We’re in! Yes!”

It has been quite a journey, and I am forever grateful to our staff and our readers for giving me the opportunity to do something I truly loved: to cover a team that means so much to me and so many others. I can only hope I did right by them all.

Since I inherited the management of Canes Country in 2016, I have been honored to work with an outstanding staff. I can’t name them all, but I hope you know just how hard they worked and how much I appreciated all they did, do, and will continue to do. To everyone who has had a part in making Canes Country what it is, thank you. I am deeply grateful.

I will still be around. I have told Andrew, who will be taking over as the permanent site manager, that I would like to continue covering games occasionally, and you know that I can’t resist a column or two every once in a while. But just as Bob Wage entrusted his baby to me in 2016, the ship is Andrew’s to sail now. I know he’ll do a great job, and I hope you know just how talented and capable he is. Between Andrew and Steph Driver, the SBN NHL league manager who supervises all the sites (and who are both wonderful people who I will go to bat for any day), Canes Country is in very, very good hands.

When I think back on how much the site has grown in my four and a half years at the helm, it’s staggering. No matter how you’ve engaged with us - by reading our articles, chiming in in the comments, sharing on social media, coming to site events or whatever else - you have played a part in making this a community successful. For that, I thank you. It’s something I’m incredibly proud to have been a part of, and I am as bullish about the future of Canes Country as I am about the team it covers.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. It’s been an honor to steward this site, and I can’t wait to see where it goes in the future. Until then, stay safe and healthy, and I’ll catch you down the road.

(By the way, since I have the floor on a point of personal privilege here anyway: my daughter has Girl Scout cookies available for sale, and we’d love for you to enjoy them. Inquire within.)