Seriously, if you’re interested, come on down. I imagine it will be an pretty exciting game.

You can hardly admonish Mateo’s comments when in your article you’re tossing insults such as “Shouldn’t all 45 people who attend Hurricanes games be V.I.P?” You should expect to get people angry when you attack our team and the fanbase.

All teams do promotions, not just Southern ones, and not just hockey. Ive been to tons of Bulls games and its hard to find one that isnt doing some kind of promotion to get people into the seats, including i’m sure the one you attended. Before taking the easy way out of that example because its minor league how many freebies have you gotten in hockey games you’ve attended.

You may consider the Canadiens a marquee team but hey haven’t been much lately and don’t mean much to us. The Hurricanes have never lost a playoff series to a Canadian hockey team, we don’t worry about them. Yes they have a rich history but you’re comparing apples to oranges when expecting a market that is 10 years old to really care about a team that never poses a threat to us in the time of our existence. Do we know our history, of course. Does that mean we should be scared of the Leafs too who haven’t won a cup since most fans have been born? That’s really an aside to the root argument but it really seemed to bother you that they were on the voucher.

Attendance is different here but its not due to lack of enthusiasm or love of our team. It is as Mateo says, without the insult. There are other teams in the area from minor league soccer to NBA to NFL to some of the biggest NCAA basketball teams in the nation. With all this competition the Canes still thrive and post strong attendance and season ticket sales. Yes Canadian teams sellout every game, which is an outstanding feat I agree, it isnt hard to admit there isnt a lot of competition sports-wise for the population’s attention. Add to that the enormous amount of corporate sales and you account for the attendance numbers and lack of need for promotions.

Perhaps you didnt see anyone taking the coupons because they have been offered for the past few weeks at the games. Could it be possible those that wanted/needed them already grabbed some previously and you assumed incorrectly and towards what would fit your preconceived notions? Yeah one person could grab a 100, but whats the point? Could he have used them all, no. Would they have been gone faster, yes. And in your eyes that would’ve been better cause you’d have seen less on the table even though less would have been used.

Don’t fall back on tired cliches of how “Southern Hockey has failed” and how great other markets are, blah, blah, blah. Do some research and ask some serious questions instead of going with the same old useless and lazy arguments. If you look at our attendance in relation to other markets you’ll see that “Southern Hockey” and the Hurricanes are just fine. Also if you look around at the sports landscape, excluding the even lazier assumption that its only Nascar (more applicable to Charlotte than Raleigh), and you’ll strengthen your argument either way, both for or against. Perhaps you’ll even learn something and realize that all is not as it seems.

On behalf of all Hurricanes fans I’d like to invite you to come attend one of our games. I’d even be willing to serve as your host and show you around. Come on down, let me show you Hurricanes hockey, then you write about whether southern expansion is the death of the NHL if you want to. Fair enough?

I suppose the awesome hockey market in Winipeg is the reason the Jets are still around? Oh wait… MY BAD!

Listen… In the middle of august we have better things to do than sit around with our helmets on wishing the pond would freeze again so we wold have something to do. This time of year we are enjoying golf, baseball, gearing up for football, going to the beach (we have nice beaches here… you should try one)…. Sorry your life isn’t as good or exciting as ours. Sorry you are obviously very bored and bitter on top of that!

Hockey season kicks off about the same time all of our major universities (it’s how we are educated in the US) kick off their football and basketball seasons… so yes… the Hurricanes have a little competition. And I think they do quite well at averaging over 16,000 people per game (on school nights mostly). We down here are so sorry that the only competition for hockey in Canada is Ice fishing, ice drilling, moose humping, and whatever else you guys do when the world freezes. We have more stuff to do AND we all love our hockey team just as much as you love yours…. if it had survived in that awesome hockey loving nirvana up there in Winapeg…

So what if they were giving away vouchers in the middle of August in a city 40 miles away for hurricanes??? Big deal? I’m a season ticket holder and it didn’t bother me!

How many fans did the Jets average last season…. Oh yeah… MY BAD again!!!! Perhaps that is why you are so bitter!

If you love hockey so much I would think you would be happy it’s expanding to the south. Your beloved Wayne Gretzky doesn’t have a problem w/ hockey in Phoenix…. or LA… Both southern hockey markets… What’s your problem?