A return to the Stanley Cup playoffs is just the start of something special that the franchise is cooking.
RALEIGH, N. C. — Smoke from pulled pork and burgers on grills wafted through the parking lots outside PNC Arena. The cars blasted Kanye West and country music. The fans parked some four to five hours before the Carolina Hurricanes dropped the puck for their first playoff game in a decade, and played cornhole, drank beers, and wheeled pigs (yes, real pigs) in wooden wagons.
As center Jordan Staal pulled into his usual parking spot at the arena, he couldn’t help but smile.
„I’ve been waiting a long time for this,“ Staal said. „It was so cool to see.“
Added defenseman Justin Faulk: „We’ve had a lot of bad years here. It’s hard for fans to enjoy the teams that aren’t doing well. Except for maybe kids, and the extremely die-hard fans. But if you were here on Monday, it was loud. People were tailgating. It was something to see. That’s the way they do sports down here, I guess. And you want to be a part of it, you want to be around it.“
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The Canes snapped their 10-year playoff drought by finishing fourth in the Metro Division with 99 points. That set up a first-round matchup with the defending Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals. Though Washington won the first two games, the Canes routed the Caps 5-0 in their first home game of the series, which was as much a statement as it was a celebration for a franchise that has reignited excitement in this community.
„We’d all probably be telling a fib if we said we’d be at this point,“ general manager Don Waddell said. „Certainly we thought we’d be a playoff-bound team. We felt good about the changes we made to the roster. But to end up with 99 points is probably more than we thought. The biggest thing is gaining respect back with the community. That’s a big step we’ve taken this year. We’d always say, ‚Next year is going to be the year, next year…'“
But how did „next year“ become „this year,“ and what comes next for a franchise that seems to have arrived ahead of schedule?
The 2018-19 season was the first full season with Tom Dundon as majority owner. Dundon has become noted in professional sports for his short-lived foray trying to save, and then ultimately folding, the upstart Alliance of American Football league — reportedly losing $70 million along the way. He has had much more success with the Hurricanes, where he is intimately involved with day-to-day operations (Dundon is the type of owner who can be seen around the team locker room after a game, and also in meetings with personnel and business folks).
