OT: Hartford Whalers memories...

[Flipside]

I was there the night Mark Howe got skewed by the goalies net. In those days a sharp piece of medal halfed the net. Not very pretty, he could have been paralysed or killed. It led to a redesign and the nets you see today.

I was at that game too

 

[Ha Who]

Glass is half empty kind of guy. I know they were not the most successful franchise but it was sure fun to have a professional franchise in Hartford. I worked for a beer distributer and believe me things were hopping in downtown Hartford when the Whalers had a game. They left and the downtown business went into the gutter. In those days the Whale drew 13,000 -14,000 a game and UConn was selling out every game from 1990 - 1996. Hartford was hot.

A good friend’s father has season tickets and we often went to games. Downtown was hopping. There is more to the equation than the good ole Smith College professor who is constantly quoted. Now I walk around during lunch and it is a ghost town despite all the apartments being built

 

[Flipside]

• Carving a plaque in woodshop of the whale, in middle school
• Watching the Whalers practice at the Glastonbury Arena
• Admiring the Howe's house as it was being built
• Going to some games, although not a hockey fanatic, and still am not - lived across the street from the Caps' practice facility in Arlington VA when they won ... and now, the Panthers play ~20 miles away, and are partying up & down these FTL streets all this week, like last year - what a sight!

 

[Waquoit]

There is more to the equation than the good ole Smith College professor who is constantly quoted. Now I walk around during lunch and it is a ghost town despite all the apartments being built

Yeah, the only people who ever listened to that quack were from CT.

 

[Dove]

I always wondered what that word meant in that song. I just looked it up and it's a fake word. Now I know.

Love is not a made up word. It's a word that means an emotion of bonding and supernatural healing. Its in all of us. Some just never know it. Love. Its really good to love.

 

[Dove]

I also remember that the Whalers won one NHL playoff series in their entire tenure in Hartford. One! In their final five years in Hartford they missed the missed the playoffs every year.

They were scuttled.

 

[Mazhude]

For years after the move to Carolina, the organization maintained many Whalers connections among its off-ice personnel; in addition to many members of executive management and the coaching staff, broadcasters Chuck Kaiton, John Forslund and Tripp Tracy (at the time a minor-league player), and equipment managers Wally Tatomir, Skip Cunningham and Bob Gorman all made the move to North Carolina with the team. In fact, the old goal horn from the Hartford Civic Center remains in use at Lenovo Center...

 

[John]

If they had stayed (which I don't think was ever in the cards because Bettman greased the skids for Karmanos with his Southern Strategy), what would have happened? Would they have just moved a decade later? I'd assume if they had stayed that a new publicly-funded arena would have had to be built - no way an NHL team is playing in the HCC/XL/PBA during this day and age.