Carolina Hurricanes: Don Cherry to Join One Last Storm Surge
Don Cherry, our favorite fun loving dinosaur has finally changed his tune on the Storm Surge. He has even gone as far as convince Justin Williams and the Carolina Hurricanes to bring it back out for one last win.
The Storm Surge. It has caused a lot of fun for the Carolina Hurricanes fanbase. So Far there have been 21 of them. With the most recent one coming against the Canadiens in a thrilling overtime win which had the team fishing in the dark.
But it also had detractors. Brian Burke called it “pee wee garbage stuff”. Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms filled with people who have decided that they needed to leave a hateful comment about another team having fun with their audience after a game. The words “cringy”, “silly”, and “childlike” were tossed around to describe the surge.
But all that came to a complete head when Don Cherry got his hands on the storm surge during an episode of Coach’s Corner. He called the team a bunch of jerks. He said that young men should not celebrate for joy of winning. He made it a mission to return proper order and discipline to the National Hockey league. Eventually, even Justin Williams had to throw in the towel:
But all that changed last weekend. After the Carolina Hurricanes opted for a more hockey traditional celebration with the fans on Saturday following their win over the Flyers, they simply went with the original harmless rush down the ice but without the clap and followed it with a jersey off the back eent
It all felt so wrong. The team never recovered going into Pittsburgh and getting manhandled by a terrible Penguins team. Without the surge, what even is this team? Even Don Cherry had to admit that there was a great disturbance in the force.
Last night, Don Cherry had a quiet phone conversation with Justin Williams begging him to bring back the Storm Surge in its proper form. After a long apology and several discussions, the two men came to an agreement, Don Cherry had to be a part of the Storm Surge. It was the only way to convince the rest of the team to come back on board.
We sat down with the one time head coach and long time host of Coach’s Corner this morning to discuss the Storm Surge and his change of heart. Each of our contributors here were given an opportunity to ask Don Cherry a Question regarding this manner. The answers will surprise you.
Q&A with Don Cherry
As We sat with the old Boston Coach, he seemed to smile more than usual. After all, he knew he was at the center of attention today. He was wearing a bright red suit polka dotted with the face of Carolina Hurricanes Captain Justin Williams and matched with a black tie and on his head was a white paper hat with the word “Jerk” inscribed on its side in marker.
We each made the rounds asking him a specific question to the occasion that will most certainly happen on Thursday following the final home game of the season against the New Jersey Devils. I opened the line of questioning for the one time critic of the Storm Surge:
“So, what do you and Justin Williams have in mind for the Storm Surge on Thursday if the Carolina Hurricanes win?”
DC: “Oh, you know I can’t tell you that, why would you ask a bone-headed question like that? Do you think I can’t keep a secret? You listen to me young man, when I was with the Boston Bruins, I was forced to keep all sorts of secrets. Who was going to be traded, who was going to be resigned. I kept the secrets then, and I am definitely going to keep them now.”
Bryan Walsh, quickly pointed to his interesting choice of headgear and quickly asked “What made you want to be a jerk?”
DC: “I think I’m a good Canadian, but I’m not the greatest Canadian. I think the people, the working-man people here in Carolina, made a statement here, that you don’t have to be a non-jerk to be a good Canadian. Anyhow, I finally understand the Storm Surges and am very proud to finally be a part of one so I can be the greatest Canadian. A jerk.”
Austin Blum, one of our newer writers stepped up at this point and asked “Which storm surge got you to change your mind about them and why?”
DC: “No storm surge changed my mind, I changed my mind. I realized that when Carolina was winning, it didn’t matter. When I was with the Boston Bruins and we were winning, we would always have some fun. It’s always been a part of the game. The fans love fun. The players don’t mind. The coaches like it. What’s the big deal?” “I can’t tell you how many people said, ‘I’ll never watch hockey again, I’m done with it,’ once the Celebrations began, … I just laughed. I knew it wasn’t possible. It’s a religion here, a way of life. We love the game too much. People were starving for it. When the postseason starts, they will all be back. They can’t help themselves.”
Matt Nidiffer, another late addition to our writing team and our resident Carolina Hurricane prospect expert felt that the coach wasn’t giving us enough and asked “What is your favorite part of the storm surge?”
DC: “My favorite part is all the fun the players are having. Anybody who says they don’t like having fun in the NHL have to be out of their minds. Anyhow, I think every team should start doing it. Every team in the National Hockey League should celebrate with the fans that paid so much money to be in the seats. This is for them and not the people upstairs who get in for free.
We were stunned. Could it be that Don Cherry was in conflict with himself from the very beginning? Was he always a fan of the celebrations and just didn’t allow himself to truly be a jerk like us? We had so many more questions to ask him.
Q&A with Don Cherry (Cont)
Josh Ryan, another veteran writer here on Cardiac Cane followed up on the previous question “Which storm surge did you wish they did?”
DC: “Everyone knows everybody loves the storm surge. They better start listening to the people who are at the game and pay the money than the twits upstairs who get in for free. I wish they did ones where they dressed in fancy expensive suits and pretended to argued on TV. And you can bet, … fans will watch every minute of them.”
Anthony Galavotti, our Fantasy Expert here at Cardiac Cane started off the second round of questions for the old coach; “What is your reaction when you see that a player might have showed some positive emotion in a game?”
DC: ” I used to not understand what they were doing. After I talked to Williams I finally understood. I had a meeting with the guy, and oh what Justin said and thought was what the silent majority — the God-fearing taxpayer and the backbone of the country — thought. He said it like it was. Positive emotion, negative emotion, I now know that it is just saying what the silent majority wants!
Dave Stevenson, a fellow site expert from PuckProse– “I’ve heard Evgeny Kuznetsov will be a part of it too! Your thoughts?”
DC: ” I spoke to Todd Reirden, and oh, well, he told me, that he was coming down and was going to teach me how to do the bird flapping thing he does. ANYHOW, I told him that there was no way he was going to miss the game, but the Capitals clinched so, who cares what he was going to do, and he should come down and join the Carolina Hurricanes for a single day, but the NHL said no.
Todd McGee, one of our most veteran writers closed out with a final question, “Is there any chance you would wear a storm surge suit if the canes win the cup?”
DC: “I already have a tailor working on a special suit with all the different storm surges on them. I can’t wait to wear it on my next episode with Ron. He might not appreciate it, but I do not care, I love them so much I started wearing their shorts. The Boston shorts needed to be washed eventually, and I can’t go without shorts can I?”
It was an eye opening interview and we made sure to thank the former Boston Coach and Stanley cup finalist, as he insisted we describe him in this article, for his time. Not many FanSided blogs get this exclusive chance. Now of course had we known that that interview was going to cost us the Penguins game, perhaps we would have canceled.
Now if you are thinking “No way this is real” or “I am just not buying this”. We would like to give you our evidence of this exclusive interview with Coach Cherry by pointing the very fact that today. Of all days. Is April 1st.
Happy April Fools Day! We hope you had as much fun reading this as we had writing it.