Hurricanes Owner Tom Dundon said part of his purchase agreement allows him to sell his 61% share after three years, but he noted yesterday he is "not going to do that," according to Chip Alexander of the Raleigh NEWS & OBSERVER. Dundon also has the "option of buying the remaining 39 percent after three years." Dundon said of the option to sell, "That’s how I do deals. What if I didn’t like hockey? It was a nice option to have, but it turns out it looks like it’s unnecessary.” Alexander notes since Dundon came on board in January, the Hurricanes were 16-20-3 and failed to qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the "ninth straight year." Dundon: "It’s fairly obvious on the hockey side we aren’t good enough to make the playoffs. The record tells you who you are. We were pretty healthy, and we weren’t good enough. We’re probably not hard enough to play against. We probably don’t score enough. And there’s something missing in terms of our engagement.” Dundon is "still in the process" of hiring a GM to replace Ron Francis, who was reassigned to the role of President of Hockey Operations. Dundon said that team President Don Waddell is serving as interim GM (Raleigh NEWS & OBSERVER, 4/10).
RIDERS ON THE STORM: In Raleigh, Luke DeCock writes of the coming offseason, "What a wild, weird, wacky operation this is going to be. Hang on tight." It may be a "tremendous success or a colossal failure, but it's unlikely to be somewhere in the mediocre middle, which is where the Hurricanes have resided the past nine years." The phrase "'change of scenery' came up a lot" at yesterday's season-ending news conference. Dundon: "It's much more about putting all those pieces together and doing everything really, really well. I think we can do a better job of identifying players and figuring out where under- and overvalued assets exist. I think we're doing a pretty good job of it. We just need to do better." DeCock notes Dundon's entire career and fortune have "been built on proving he can find better ways to do things." DeCock: "We are the latest laboratory. After watching this franchise pretend to make progress for almost a decade while ignoring the actual lack thereof, what's the harm in letting him find out?" (Raleigh NEWS & OBSERVER, 4/10).
