Carolina Hurricanes: Tom Dundon’s 1-Year Owner Report Card, Part Three

Final Grades

We have dived into five different segments of Tom Dundon’s first year as the owner of the Carolina Hurricanes. For those of you who have ridden with us on this journey, Dundon’s overall grade is near. Many of you have noticed that a lot of what was graded kept repeating itself across the various sections. That is because the way Tom Dundon has operated since becoming the new owner, all of these things mesh and interact with each other, supporting and elevating each to be better. He is building a culture, and that takes time.

As such, a year may not be enough time to fully get a feel on how Tom Dundon has done as the new owner of the team. Like we said before, he has yet to see a full season from start to finish. Does he take what he has learned from this season into next? Will he continue to push for more improvements in each of these five aspects? Or will he eventually settle into a more hands-off approach a la Peter Karmanos?

Only time will tell for those questions. For now the general feeling and consensus is that he will continue to push to improve where needed, and expand upon areas that have already drastically improved. His business approach and his tactics have shocked the NHL world and put the Carolina Hurricanes back on the map for the first time since 2006. And he has not given anyone the sense that he is anywhere near done.

Before we calculate the final grade, let’s look back at the five sections we have already graded and review the grades that were given to Tom Dundon in his first year. As a reminder, the five sections are: Fan Interaction; promotions and marketing; in-game experience; hiring decisions and today’s section, on-ice results. Here are how he has grades in those sections:

So now that we have graded each individual section we can calculate Tom Dundon’s final grade with our very (not) secret formula. We take his progress in each of the five portions into consideration as well as the state of the team when he purchased it one year ago.

For the ability to turn around the franchise’s non-sports performance along with give the fanbase a different feeling of hope for the future of the franchise, a B is a very fair grade. It is obvious that his presence on the team has given it a lot of what it needed. The fans are flocking back to the arena in numbers that haven’t been seen for years. The team is being talked about nationally on every hockey station. They are trending in the most positive ways on social media. There is a lot of good that has happened since his arrival.

That said, there is still a lot of room for improvement. A grade of B shows exactly that. The good news is that Tom Dundon is on his way to improving that grade with everything that has already happened since the 11th of January. Especially the latest trade with the Wild for Nino Niederreiter. If this team manages to crawl back into the playoffs this year, and end the franchise’s awful post-season drought, it will end a lot of the concern that surrounds the first fan of the Carolina Hurricanes: our own Julius Caesar, Tom Dundon.

Question for CC Readers:

How would you grade Tom Dundon’s first year as the owner of the Carolina Hurricanes?