jrichta

thank you for the information! Has anyone said anything about the severity of the injury??

Does anyone know why Lee Evans has not been on the field with the rest of the guys during the last two days? Thanks to anyone who can shed some light! John

the word i was trying to type is 'aging' Canes team. They are one of the oldest teams in the league and playing like they could play forever!

heck yeah! I'm glad someone finally agrees with me on that. I'm done talking on the subject. Again, I tip my hate to Buffalo and I wish them the best of luck next season. They are a young team with a lot to look forward to. However, I am going to prepare to enjoy the Canes hoisting up the cup and no one is going to lesson that experience for me. If the sabers want to cry and say they were hurt and banged up, then heal up over the offseason and prove next season that injuries were the reason they couldn't overpower an again Canes team. Go Canes and go Bills!!!!!!!

Look at Carolina's record before Cole's injury and then take a look at it after his injury. If thats not enough to tell you just how valuable he is to the team, I don't know what is. Carolina was looked like a well oiled machine before his injury. After he went down, they saw their winning percentage for the rest of the season dip below 50% and they even lost 5 in a row during one stretch. I know must guys on this board don't like giving any credit to the 'experts' at ESPN, but several of the sports writers were saying that Carolina was a team on the decline heading into the playoffs and they would be lucky to advance out of the first series because of how cold they were playing, and the injury to Eric Cole. And Cole does a lot more then just hit anything that moves. He puts the puck in the net quite a bit too. Again, you can look up the stats if you want. I do give Buffalo a hell of a lot of credit, but I'm not going to let anyone convince me that Carolina played a team that wasn't up to the challenge and that the victory was tainted. And as for Weight, he could have chosen any team he wanted and he chose to play for Carolina. You can't hold that against the team either. I remember back in 2000 or 2001 when Carolina was the huge underdog against the Devils. They went out and won game 1 and although that was the only game in the series they won, every single game the rest of the way went down to the wire with two games going into overtime. When its playoff time, you can throw talent out of the window. Either you have heart and catch a few lucky breaks, or you don't. In closing, i'm not attacking Buffalo fans or the team. I'm just saying that Carolina has worked their asses off this season to get to where they are. They are filled with veterens and are an aging team and with the exception of cole, stall, and ward, many of their 'big name' players don't have more then 2 to 3 years left. I'm glad to see them get a chance to take home the cup this year!!

"whiny bastards"??? who is the one doing all the whining now?? I'm a Carolina Hurricanes fan because I was born and rasied in Norch Carolina and I am also a Buffalo Bills fan because thats the first team I started pulling for when I got interested in football around 10 years of age or so. (I'm 26 now) Weather that was a good call or a bad call, it did not decide the outcome of the game. Carolina won by two goals, not one, in case you have forgotten. Also, you mention the 'string' of injuries Buffalo suffered during the playoffs. Why don't you also mention that Eric Cole, Carolina's star player and at the time of his injury a top three consensus pick for player of the year, was out for the entire series as well. This is the bottom line. Also, need I remind you that if not for Williams's choke on a wide open net in game 6, the series never would have gone to a game 7. Both teams played their hearts out and in the end, Carolina came out on top. They deserve to go to the finals and Buffalo deserves a pat on the back and a job well done. Both teams will be strong again next year and will once again content for the cup. I give Buffalo a hell of a lot of credit for playing the Canes so tough, but I do not respect fans who say that Buffalo was cheated out of a win and that Carolina is lucky and does not deserve to go to the finals. Suck it up and be a man or stop watching sports....... John in NC

Actually, I graduated from North Carolina State University in 2004 and N.C.State happens to have a top 10 engineering school and a top 5 veterinarian school in the country. True, a big part of the university is the agriculture department but that is starting to take a back seat to the programs just mentioned above along with the college of business managment which just cracked the top 20 last year for best business schools in the country. It's true that we get railed on for being farmers and rednecks, but the bottom line is, without farmers to grow our food, what in the heck are you going to eat and where are you going to get it from?? We are certainly far behind both Duke and UNC in basketball, however, we have gone to the NCAA tourney the past 5 years in a row, reaching the sweet 16 two years ago, and we had ACC player of the year Julius Hodge who was a senior in 2004. Not to mention we have played in 3 of the past 6 ACC conference championships. However, our football program is light years ahead of both of theirs. N.C.State has put big name players in the NFL, most recently Philip Rivers, Tory Holt, Koren Robinson, Terrence Holt, and now Mario Williams, Manny Lawson, and John McCargo. And how could anyone forget that one of the all time great players to play for the Bills, Will Wolford, played his college ball at N.C.State. FYI- Our baseball team is currently ranked 11th in the country.