For a fleeting moment, if one were able to block out the other sights in the building and ignore the feelings of disenchantment solidified over 21 years, it was beautiful.
The Carolina Hurricanes, what became of the team ripped from our Hartford hockey hearts in 1997, hit the PNC Arena ice Sunday evening as the Whalers reincarnated and, man, did those green jerseys pop. The iconic logo never looked better. In a temporary and twisted way, the whole scene and theme of “Whalers Night” even felt good.
For only that moment, though, only at the outset of this bizarre event, one of the strangest in history with ties to our sporting landscape, one that ultimately was more about personality conflict and confusion than recapturing the past or realizing a fantasy. It was kind of sad, really.
Brass Bonanza blared and Pucky The Whale shook hands throughout the game, a 5-3 WhalerCanes victory over the Bruins that was played before a near-sellout crowd of 17,491, a collection of hockey fans mismatched in green and red at the collision of past and present.
It didn’t feel right. It was unsettling. It wasn’t the horrendous affront to pride in what took place at the Civic Center in the 1980’s and 1990’s like the most vocal faction of Connecticut fans made it out to be. It was just forced, uncomfortable, manufactured romance.
No more, please. We ask this of the good people at the Hurricanes, who put on a terrific show and were all in on creating a unique theme and scene, however misguided it turned out to be. These hockey communities must go their separate ways for good now, no harm done, no memories trashed, but nothing gained.
Of course, the Canes will wear the same green jerseys, with the perfect whale tail and negative space H on the chest, March 5 in Boston — planned, scheduled and announced in conjunction with whatever the heck it was that took place Sunday on Tobacco Road — and then the sweaters will be auctioned off for charity, with some of the return going to the Learn to Play program at the Champions Skating Center in Cromwell.
And then, that’s it. Has to be. As sure as the Whalers uniform and logo still work, Whalers Night does not. The Hurricanes, the most disgruntled fans say, essentially dug up Whalers graves and picked through our heartstrings to skate around in the dead skin of our Adams Division heroes. But so what? It was a little money grab that any forward-thinking business might try.
“Well, I don’t know where a money grab is because, first of all, Boston is always a great draw for us,” Hurricanes general manager Don Waddell said in his office before the game. “All I know is I spent $100,000 on goalie equipment, helmets, gloves — those things don’t have the value. Now the jerseys will do a purpose, but all that money is going to go to our foundation and not back to our hockey team. This was never, absolutely not — I would totally disagree that it was a money grab at all.”
Few will buy that but we also must understand that no franchise is going to break the bank with a marketing gimmick. Whalers gear has been readily available on the open market for nearly 10 years and the logo, owned by the NHL, is all over the place. Teams take only a percentage of that revenue.
Sure, the lines snaked out of the Canes souvenir shops and there was a lot of green in the crowd and the registers surely rang Sunday, but this is not how a hockey organization secures financial health. Nor is it how the Canes, third from last in NHL attendance, would go about drawing new fans. It was about engaging, staying fresh, and that’s OK.
Peter Karmanos, Hartford enemy No. 1 for moving the team in 1997, sold it in January to an ambitious, involved and progressive Texas billionaire named Tom Dundon. Whalers Night had been thrown around as an idea for years but never made sense with Karmanos, who does maintain an equity stake, at the helm. Dundon told the team to run with it, so here we were Sunday, the NHL again infiltrating our world, this time from afar.
It wasn’t insulting because we can’t let it be. The NHL is no closer to a return to Hartford with or without it. Nothing we cherish was taken away. The team has been gone from Hartford longer than it was even there, and Sunday night didn’t represent a malicious stab at a fresh wound.
It just, from a Hartford perspective, fell flat.
Like “Let’s Go WhalerCanes” chants fell flat. Like the Mike Rogers ceremonial puck-drop fell flat. Like the postgame team routine fell flat — literally and figuratively – with players flopping to the ice as beached whales in a themed celebration. Like Brass Bonanza – and I never thought I’d say this – sounded flat. It came off as hokey with each goal simply because of its audience, which seemed to appreciate that it was cute and catchy but could never be moved by it the way our city was in the 1980’s and 90’s.
Those folks shouldn’t be. It isn’t theirs. It is ours, unofficially but certainly. Carolina fans did nothing wrong in having a little family fun, but their traditions mixed with ours made for a strange recipe. Fans wearing Whalers jerseys and Hurricanes hats, or vice versa, looked ridiculous.
There were, to put it mildly, conflicting feelings in Connecticut in advance of the event. Guess what?
“Here, too,” Waddell said.
That’s right. Many Canes fans don’t want any part of the Whalers. The Whalers belong to Hartford and the Canes belong to Raleigh. They are exclusive and we have to treat it that way now, but that doesn’t mean a public meltdown needs to take place. It only makes Connecticut look bitter and weak.
Those on Twitter who aren’t even old enough to remember the Whalers but somehow were so appalled Sunday, and even more so those who think the team is on its way back, need to get a grip. It was just the Hurricanes in costume against the Bruins – no Ron Francis, no Cam Neely — and people innocently playing along.
Yes, for a moment it was like looking at a great scrap book. Breathtaking. But the moment has passed. Waddell even seems to understand this.
Asked if the franchise should be reconnecting with its old fan base, he said, “I’m not so sure. There are still probably a lot of people who are bitter that the team left. So I don’t know if you could ever do anything to ever make people feel good about the situation.”
So let’s not. The only way something like this should be attempted again is if it takes place in Hartford with an enormous charitable benefit.
Green and red just don’t work together.
Merry Christmas.
