He kept his press conference short today when announcing it, saying that he had to in order to make it through it without tears. Understandable for a guy who spent many years of his career with a team who struggled and then ultimately relocated and basically started anew here in the Triangle. (Just as a side note, Wesley is the last of the players who relocated with the team to North Carolina.)

His hard work payed off in 2006 when he finally was able to raise the Stanley Cup above him and then in a very kind act he spent his day with the Cup at Camp Lejuene  before taking it to his church.  He said that his 2nd best memory with this organization was getting to see the fans tailgate and just seeing the development of a fanbase.

Glen WILL be staying with the Hurricanes as Director of Defenseman Development and hopefully he can pass down some of what he learned from Ray Bourque to the younger generation of defensemen.

Rutherford announced that some time during the 2008-2009 season there will be a night where Wesley will have his jersey retired and raised to join Ron Francis’ number in the RBC Center rafters. A very fitting end for a great career.

So after 1,457 and 537 points and more heart than I have seen in any other player I salute Mr. Wesley for all he has done.

The goal for the team is to raise $5,000 and my personal goal is at $125 right now.

Please click here: http://race.komennctriangle.org/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=1030&px=1293965 to view my page where you can donate to this great cause!

You can also click here: http://www.komennctriangle.org/ to view the main page for the Susan G. Komen walk.

Now that I am done with my shameless self promotion…Go Canes!!

• Sergei Samsonov was re-signed for three years after putting up 32 points in 38 games here in NC.
• Tuomo Ruutu, Eric Staal, Cam Ward, Dennis Seidenberg, Niclas Wallin, and Tim Gleason are all playing in the IIHF Championships for their respective countries
• JR is working on getting our RFA’s re-signed starting with Ruutu and Gleason as the top priorities.
• The jury is still out on whether Peter Laviolette will still be behind the bench for the Canes for the 2008-2009 season. Karmanos is expected to sit down and talk with Lavi sometime in the coming week since JR’s thoughts remain the same on the situation.
• The most exciting news from my perspective comes about the open position to back-up Cam Ward. JR indicated that Michael Leighton, our AHL wonder who recently made 98 saves in a 50T loss, is the strongest candidate and stated: “Michael Leighton is in the strongest position of anyone with the year he’s had. He’s done what he needs to do. We’ll wait until June because somebody else may have some thoughts on somebody we haven’t looked at or considered, but we won’t leave it until July 1.”

I will update more when there is something to share. Until then enjoy the Conference Finals!

The feeling that all the time, money, emotion I have spent this season as a hockey fan is probably done……well…really I just never thought it would be this hard.

I know a lot of people cheer against the Canes, everyone wants to see Alex Ovenchicken in the playoffs. I get it. But I think a lot of people don’t really understand why this team deserves a better fate than this.

300+ man games lost: Justin Williams, David Tanabe, Matt Cullen, Rod Brind’amour, Chad Larose…the list includes EVERYONE one of our players except for Eric Staal…..all injured at some time or another. We went for 2 months without our Captain…..

The “Rat pack”: Keith Aucoin, Ryan Bayda, Wade Brookbank, and Tim Conboy. I can’t say enough about these 4 guys. They were our heart and soul when we were sitting in the slumps. They really filled in for guys…who they probably shouldn’t have been able to fill in for. Brookbank went out and dropped the gloves with guys he KNEW were going to beat the crap out of him. What says “I want to be here” more than that?

Ruutu, Samsonov and Corvo: Guys who were on their last leg with their former teams and seemed to find their touch here. Here is to hoping Tuomo AND Samsonov stick around for a while. Joe is stuck with us for a couple years so no worries about him!

Everyone doubted this team…especially when Rod Brind’amour went down. This team has fought like crazy and they really deserved better than this. All of them. They work together as a team and took the blame for every loss instead of pinning it on the other team like some teams do (See: Washington Capitals and Florida Panthers)

So to my team…thank you for all the memories this year. It was a hard road, but I wouldn’t trade it for any other team.

I appreciate Torts putting Smith in against us for several reasons:  he is very entertaining to watch, we owned him last time, Caps get the better goalie tomorrow, and he does stuff like leave the net when we threaten to dump it in and then we get open net!

I loved the lines tonight. Samsonov was not working out with Staal and Cole, Whitney is a much better fit there. I was liking all 4 of our lines actually. Our 1A,B,C,D lines that is. That’s one thing I love about this team. The 1D line is just as important as the line with Staal on it.

Anyway. This game is done and we are not. Time for them to focus on Friday. They will get the much needed rest tomorrow and be back for game 82 against the Panthers. Should be intense.

Best of luck to all of the Lightning tomorrow!!

I am too disgusted to write any more tonight..I will edit the post later.

They did their best on Friday, all but killing the Thrashers with a final tally of 7-1. The Thrashers could have easily played spoiler since they have nothing else to play for at this point, but it didn’t happen. Hamilton and Ruutu both scored twice on the one they call Moose and although that was enough we also got goals from Corvo, Letowski and Staal.

Perhaps we should have saved some of that offensive energy for last night. The Lightning were waiting for us in Tampa Bay where the Canes struggled all season..even if they are the worst team in the league. Kari Ramo was stellar in goal for them facing 39 shots and stopping 38 of them. At the other end of the ice Ward continued his solid play, but a bad goal put the Bolts up 2-1 that proved to be the game winner.  We just looked like a team who was tired and had played the night before. A 3rd period rally of desperation couldn’t tie it up to at least get us one point and combined with a Washington win the Canes lead in the Southeast has been cut to two points with 3 games left for each team.

The importance of Tuesday’s game grew infinitely around 10pm last night after our game. If we win, we take the SE and are set. If we lose, Washington ties us for points pretty much meaning we must win our last two (One on Wednesday and one on Friday) in order to stay tied (in that case, the Canes would win the tiebreakers)

The sense of urgency must come from the National Anthem on for the Canes and they just need to finish it on Tuesday!

How about Cam Ward? He does this thing we call “Cam Ward shutouts.” After giving up a goal early in the game, he plays lights out the rest of the game…he has lots of these on the year. Major props to him for  being able to stay focused when he was only tested 17 times.

Then there’s this guy who was pretty good tonight, Joe Corvo. You know, that dude that they called “Uh Oh” in Ottawa. The only person saying “Uh oh” tonight was Gerber when Corvo put the puck past him 3 times tonight! Joe is the first defenceman since Ozolinsh in 2001 to score a hat trick.  The look on his face after the 3rd goal is something I will keep with me for a long time.   “What can you say?” Corvo said. “If I got to write a storybook ending, this would be it.” He just seems so genuinely happy to be here and for the way he has been welcomed by the team and the Caniac nation.

I have to mention Eaves too, because since coming back from the injury he has worked hard every shift and it FINALLY paid off today with his first goal as a Cane. Hopefully the flood gates open for him now that he has made his former team pay.

And Eric Staal continues to be one of the best players on the ice. 25+ minutes of ice time today and 3 assists. Sergei Samsonov too…2 assists.

Now remember this 5-1 win is after calling up Joe Jensen and Pat Dwyer since Matt Cullen is unable to play (joining Whitney, Brookbank, LaRose, Williams, Tanabe and Brind’amour in our press box)….against a fairly healthy Ottawa team.

Now unfortunately for the ‘Canes the Panthers and Capitals won today so our lead on the SE stays at 5 points. 8 games left. Oh I hate when the NHL season begins to draw to a close, especially when the playoffs are not 100% for us.

PS: As a side note Marty Gerber was vicious to his former teammates today. He got in Staal’s face for no reason and was yelling at him, to which Staal said “Get the f–k out of my face, Marty” and Marty kept running his mouth at him. The entire arena, which is usually pretty friendly to him since we remember what he has done for us in the past, then turned 180 degrees on him and began booing him and taunting him with the goalie chant. So much for souther hospitality!