Congratulations to Karmanos for achieving that honor. He should be commended for having a vision and sticking to a detailed plan. He almost chose Columbus, OH over Raleigh but he couldn’t get passed the level of fan support that was split between 3 Universities in the area. He guessed that if he could unify that fan base and appeal to the Northern transplants who were employed at RTP that his plan would be viable. Note that the tenure in Greensboro failed because it didn’t have rabid local fan support or Northern transplant population.

Also Karmanos should be commended for allowing Jimmy Rutherford to run the team without interference. Karmanos sets a reasonable budget(aside from Sergei Fedorov disaster) and Rutherford makes it work. Owner interference is always a distraction that most times causes failure. (See Dan Snyder and Al Davis for good examples).

GO Canes!!!