The second of three Hurricanes University classes was last night. This session featured a “Chalk Talk” with Chuck Kaiton, now in his 25th year as the radio voice of the franchise.
Kaiton jumped right in with a discussion on the evolution of the game, from its beginnings where it was illegal to pass the puck forward (you had to pass it laterally or backward only), up to the 1972 Russia/Canada “Super Series,” where the European style really came to prominence. We got “textbooks” for the class, but he didn’t really go through them. They’re good reference manuals for later, though.
He stressed througout the class that the basic play in hockey is that you, the offense, want to create a 2-on-1 somewhere on the ice. The defense, in turn, wants to even those sides up. However, Kaiton said, you don’t want to create a 3-on-1, because you’re limiting your options elsewhere.
The average line shift in the NHL is 45 seconds. He clarified the “too many men on the ice” penalty for us by explaning that for a line change to happen, the players coming off of the ice must be within five feet of the bench, and those players must make no further move to play the puck. Only then can the fresh guys come on.
He also clarified questions I had about the two-line pass, detailing various scenarios and explaning why they were or were not offsides. The gist of it is that A) the goal lines don’t count for the two-line pass, and B) if you cross two lines before the puck does, you’re offside, otherwise you’re fine.
He detailed the responsibilities of the Canes coaching staff – Kevin McCarthy handles the defensemen, head coach Paul Maurice does the offense and general strategy, and Randy Ladoceur is the go-between from Maurice to the offensive players.
Kaiton also waxed philosophical on the rules, saying that he favors moving the goal lines back from the current 13’ away from the boards to the original 10’, thus giving an extra six feet of space to the neutral zone and allowing the offense to open up more.
After Kaiton was done, we picked up our T-Shirts and tickets to the party suite for Thursday. Promotions director Brian Mehm was even nice enough to give me an extra ticket for Holly, so she can come in, take some pictures of the graduation, and then go back home with the baby. Thanks, Brian!
It was great hearing Chuck Kaiton just get up there and talk – he obviously knows his stuff. I’m looking forward to the game on Thursday, and am seriously considering the “Graduate Session” in March.
Director’s Cut Bonus Features
7-8 members of the “Storm Squad” were taking the class, including the large black guy and the girl who always wears the funny cowboy hat. They pretty much kept to themselves during the class.
The guy sitting next to me last night looked like Mr. Magoo and sounded like Mike Tyson. He also asked about 8,273,199 questions. His wife sounded like she had SARS.
For the first class, we got dressed near where the Zamboni’s park in the RBC. In that garage-like area, there was some sort of high school cheerleading practice going on. That seemed like a bizarre place to have cheerleaders – in the bowels of a hockey/basketball arena, on a Wednesday night. But they were there, doing their routines to a boombox.
The player’s lounge, where they can hang out in the morning before practice, has a Steve Chiasson jersey framed on the wall.
In the on-ice session, they had a relay race, where they broke us up into teams of five or six, and you had to skate from goal line to blue line, put a puck on top of a big orange cone, and skate back to tag the next person in line. My team won both races. Boo-ya.
