You're the best, Erik

I knew something would happen over my vacation. I just knew it.

Erik Cole was traded to the Edmonton Oilers for Joni Pitkanen on July 1st.

I will miss you Cole. Seeing you kick butt in Carolina was some of the best hockey I've watched. You will always be the best power forward evah!

I have declared that there will be a mourning period for the departure of my favorite hockey player from my hockey team. Therefore, this blog will be dressed in black until my birthday.

Goodbye Erik. I highly doubt your style of play will be seen on this team for a while.

But the Amazing-Power-Forward-Spirit will live on!

Poor Erik...

Today's N&O article reports on Erik Cole and his ongoing recovery from his neck injury. Apparently the two vertebra affected fused together in the healing process, causing him to lose some of the range of motion in his neck.

The article compares the fusion to Glen Wesley's surgically fused vertebra, which, considering how long Wesley's been playing, could be a good sign.

"When I look at Glen, he had the fusion done and he has a limited range of mobility," Cole said. "I don't think he's really sore like I was this year, but I bet the year after he had the surgery done, that first year I would assume he was pretty sore then. It's just something that over time will become easier to deal with and play with."

Hopefully Cole will continue to kick derrière on the ice. I think it's pretty amazing that he not only continues to play after his injury, but he also hasn't seemed to lose any of his Amazing-Power-Forward-Spirit.

Canes attempt come back - Key word "attempt"

Well, Canes played okay, but still lost 3-2 against New Jersey last night.

I thought that the Canes played pretty well in the first period, besides letting the Devils score on their first shot of the game. David Tanabe scored later on in the period by crashing the net. Tanabe appears to have been touched by the Amazing-Power-Forward-Spirit recently, having 7 shots on net in his last two games, and he has also been charging the net on a regular basis.

In the second and the beginning of the third, however, the Canes lost some of their luster and went behind by two goals to start off the third. Then, they attempted to come back in the remainder of the third, but couldn't get it done.

Luckily, the Islanders lost last night as well, so the Canes are still tied with them for seventh place.

So, Canes played well, but, in the end, didn't play well for the whole game, so they lost. Sounds like a lot of the games this year.

But, the consolation prize in all this is that Duke lost to Virginia Commonwealth in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Ha!

Bonus! and Deja vu

I have an incredible sense of deja vu today.
But I'll get to that later. First, my recap of the totally awesome Pittsburgh game that I attended.

Canes won 3-2 over the Penguins Friday, much to my happiness. The Amazing-Power-Forward-Spirit of Cole (see last post) was truly with this team that night.

This was evident in the first period, when Eric Staal laid this incredible body check on Brooks Orpik. I don't think I've ever seen Staal check anyone - especially as hard as he did. And the fact that it was on the most hated player in the NHL (for me, at least) - Bonus!
Actually Staal played one of his best games of the season, in my opinion. But I think that's just because he wanted to show up his younger brother.

This game was just awesome. The sellout crowd was absolutely into it, making this a really exciting game to go to. And the fact that I got to boo my most hated person in the NHL every time he touched the puck - Bonus!

Now, as for today... I'm not sure if it's really deja vu or not. There's just a lot of weird coincidences.

To start off, I'll describe what happened last year on this date. It was a Saturday and the Hurricanes were playing Pittsburgh, and beating them up pretty well. I went to go watch the UNC-Duke game at 9:00, because it was going to be a better show than the hockey game (Plus, if you live anywhere near these teams, you know it's all anyone is talking about Monday morning).
I checked back with the Canes game at halftime - only to find that Cole had been injured - pretty badly, by the way John and Tripp were talking. So, nervously, I went back to watching UNC beat Duke in Cameron on Senior Night.
The next morning, I found several accounts of what Cole was out with - some reports had it was his arm because of the way he went off the ice - but I knew it couldn't be that because he didn't go into the boards with his arm. Finally, the true story came out - that Cole had fractured vertebra in his neck, wasn't paralyzed, but he would be out for quite a long time. (And that Brooks Orpik is an absolute loser...)

Fast forward to today, a year after that Saturday. Both the Canes and Penguins play today, although not against each other. But the teams played each other only played two nights ago. UNC and Duke play each other again - still Senior Night, although this time it's Carolina's night, not Duke's. Cole's out - not with a neck injury, thank goodness.

I don't know where exactly I was going with typing all this out. But, I just think there's way too many coincidences for it to go unsaid that the same events are happening in the same time frame a year later. The more I think about it, the more I think that there has to be some underlying message in all of this.

Or, y'know, I've had too much Mountain Dew within the last week. Take your pick.

O! The Amazing-Power-Forward-Spirit!

Canes play Pittsburgh tonight.

If Erik Cole was expected to play tonight, I would be yammering on without end about the Cole v. Orpik #3 matchup.
But sadly, Cole is on injured reserve with a torn hip muscle.

I am wearing my Erik Cole t-shirt today because, even though the matchup is not taking place, the horrendous hit Orpik had on Cole 363 days ago has not been forgotten by me (and hopefully none of you Caniacs out there has forgotten it either). Perhaps, by wearing my favorite t-shirt in the entire world, the Amazing-Power-Forward-Spirit of Cole will infuse the Hurricanes with a blowout win over the Penguins.

And this team could definitely use some Amazing-Power-Forward-Spirit right now.