The Carolina Hurricanes Tickets : The Hurricanes Were Not Able To Follow Up Their Success

The Carolina Hurricanes are a professional ice hockey team based in Raleigh

, North Carolina, USA. They are members of the Southeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL), and play their home games at the 18,680-seat RBC Center. They are the only major professional sports team to play in Raleigh; North Carolina's other two major franchises, the NFL's Carolina Panthers and the NBA's Charlotte Bobcats, are located in Charlotte.

The team was formed in 1971 as the New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association, and moved into the NHL in 1979 as the Hartford Whalers, relocating to North Carolina in 1997. They won their first Stanley Cup during the 2005/06 season, beating the Edmonton Oilers four games to three. On April 8, 2010 NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced the Hurricanes as the hosts of the 2011 NHL All-Star Game at the RBC Center.

The New England Whalers were established in November 1971 when the World Hockey Association awarded a franchise to begin play in Boston, Massachusetts. For the first two years of their existence, the club played their home games at the Boston Arena and Boston Garden. With increasing difficulty scheduling games at Boston Garden (owned by the rival NHL Bruins), the owners decided to move the team to Hartford, Connecticut beginning with the 1974-75 season.

While waiting for the completion of a new arena in Hartford, the Whalers played the first part of the season at The Big E Coliseum in West Springfield. On January 11, 1975, the team played its first game in front of a sellout crowd at the Hartford Civic Center Coliseum. Including the period in the late 1970s when the Whalers played at the nearby Springfield Civic Center while their Hartford arena was being rebuilt after heavy snow followed by heavy rain compounded engineering and construction shortcomings, causing the roof to collapse, the franchise remained in Hartford.

As one of the most stable WHA teams, the Whalers, along with the Edmonton Oilers, Quebec Nordiques, and Winnipeg Jets, were admitted to the NHL when the rival leagues merged in 1979. Because the NHL already had a team in the New England area, the Boston Bruins, the former WHA team was renamed the Hartford Whalers.

Unfortunately, the team was never as successful in the NHL as they had been in the WHA, recording only three winning seasons. They peaked with their only playoff series victory in 1986 over the Quebec Nordiques and extended the Montreal Canadiens to overtime of the seventh game in the second round, followed by a regular season division title in 1987. 1992 was the last time the Hartford Whalers made the playoffs.

The Hurricanes were not able to follow up their success. In 2006/07, the Hurricanes finished third in the Southeast and eleventh overall in the Eastern Conference. This finish made them the first champions since the 1938/39 Chicago Blackhawks to have failed to qualify for the playoffs both the seasons before and after their championship season. In 2007-08, Carolina again missed out as Washington stormed back to take the division title on the last day of the season, leaving the Hurricanes second in the division and ninth overall in the conference, and making the Canes only the second club in NHL history to miss the playoffs for two seasons running after a Cup triumph.

The organization retains many Whaler connections among its off-ice personnel; in addition to executive management and the coaching staff, of whom only goaltenders coach Tom Barrasso was never involved with the franchise in Hartford, broadcasters Chuck Kaiton, John Forslund and Tripp Tracy (at the time a minor-league player), and equipment managers Wally Tatomir, Skip Cunningham and Bob Gorman all made the move to North Carolina with the team. Finally, the old (and much reviled) goal horn from the Hartford Civic Center remains in use at RBC Center.

When the Whalers moved to Carolina to begin the 1997-98 NHL season, the previously retired #2 for Rick Ley (D, 1972/1981) and #19 for John McKenzie (RW, 1977/79 for the New England Whalers) were returned to circulation, while #9 has never been issued by the Hurricanes. #2 was issued only once, to Wesley for two different stints, before being re-retired for Wesley in 2009, but #19 has been issued to several players since the move, most recently Jiri Tlusty.

Hall of Famers: Ron Francis, who captained the team in both Hartford and Carolina and spent fifteen years with the franchise overall as a player before joining its staff in 2006, was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2007. The only other Hall member to have played in a Hurricanes jersey is Paul Coffey, who spent one and a half seasons in Carolina near the end of his career (as well as, two seasons prior, twenty games in Hartford).

In the franchise's history, WHA and NHL Whalers Gordie Howe and Dave Keon are both members, as is Bobby Hull, although he only played nine games in Hartford. In addition, longtime franchise radio play-by-play announcer Chuck Kaiton received the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award in 2004, an honor granted by the Hall of Fame.

by: Amanda Harrison

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