Earlier this season, the Carolina Hurricanes announced a new “Hurricanes Homegrown Series” of 8 games that would feature local food, beer, music and art. The first of these games was on November 18 and the second game of the series is coming up soon on December 30.

eatRaleigh wrote a great food-focused article about the new local initiative that includes a great set of pictures of the menu items that will make you hungry. You can also find beer, music, art, calendar and other information on the Hurricanes Homegrown Series on the team’s web site.

With the Hurricanes Homegrown food and local thrust in the background and the food-friendly holiday season upon us, this week’s Canes Chronicle will take a pot luck/buffet type of look at the vibrant group of local (or at least with local ties) non-traditional media that offers a variety of coverage of Carolina Hurricanes hockey. I recognize that most of these are not new for Canes die-hards, but my hope is that people can share this post with more casual Canes fans with the goal of pulling more people in and encouraging more Canes time for everyone.

 

Cool stuff

For visually-inclined Canes fans, Jamie Kellner‘s photo journalism is a must bookmark. Her most recent Smugmug (where she keeps her photos) entries are a great set of photos in the black third jerseys from Tuesday’s game. Twitter (@jbkellner) is 1 great way to stay up to date on her latest photo work. Jamie is also part of the Canes Country team at SBNation where her most recent post analyzed/projected the possible effects of the impending NHL expansion draft next summer.

For audio-inclined Canes fans, Section 328‘s regular (usually weekly during the season) podcast is a must-listen for Canes fans. The podcast features an interesting mix of hockey, beer and heavy snark. The latest edition which can be found on their main page features Brock McGinn.

 

The news beat

In addition to the News & Observer, Canes fans are lucky enough to have a couple other sources that cover the Hurricanes on a daily basis with Canes and Coffee of course being one of them.

Cory Lavalette from the North State Journal is a regular practice/morning skate attendee and beat writer for the upstart North Carolina news outlet and is a great alternate (or primary) daily news site for Canes hockey coverage. About two-thirds of the way through a broader article, I wrote about the importance of supporting Cory and the North State Journal’s Canes coverage over the summer. Cory’s most recent article at NSJ is his recap of the Canes’ barn-burner 8-6 win on Tuesday, and Twitter (@corylav) is a great source of practice and other detailed regular updates straight from the rink.

For those who are both NC State and Hurricanes-inclined, Andrew Schnittker (who also writes at Canes and Coffee) and David Kehrli from NCSU’s Technician student newspaper cover the Hurricanes beat there. Their most recent article recapped the Hurricanes wild win on Tuesday.

 

Independent, local “blogs”

In addition to Canes and Coffee, Hurricanes fans have a growing number of local, independent news sources available. With the volume and depth of coverage expanding, I am not sure “blog” is a fair description, but you get the idea.

Bob Wage who founded and managed Canes Country just this summer launched a new, independent site Canes Edge.

Also new to Hurricanes hockey news as of this summer is an upstart group of young Canes’ writers at Canes Chatter. The most recent article at Canes Chatter written by Jonathan Wagner suggests that the Canes must be in playoff position by February 1 to have a chance.

 

Local writers for national publications and “the next generation of Hurricanes coverage”

In addition to the few locally-owned and operated Hurricanes hockey web sites and blogs that have sprung up, there is local coverage by people with feet on the ground in the Raleigh and/or formerly feet on the ground in Raleigh.

Not all but a large contingent of this group is what I call “the next generation of Hurricanes coverage” as many are college (mostly but not all journalism) students who call the Raleigh area home when not at school. The majority of the group from Canes Chatter already mentioned above would also qualify as part of the next generation.

In addition, Canes and Coffee’s own Jordan Futrell who covers the Charlotte Checkers here and Andrew Schnittker (also at the Technician as mentioned above) who are part of Canes and Coffee are also part of this promising group. Jordan’s most recent Charlotte Checkers’ article is HERE, and Andrew’s latest ‘Hurricanes Week in Review’ is HERE.

Ben Pope who did an incredible job covering the Carolina Hurricanes for the News & Observer this summer is now off at school but still covering Canes hockey at The Hockey Writers. Follow Ben on Twitter (@CanesReport) and also check out his latest article on Teuvo Teravainen at The Hockey Writers.

Cardiac Cane at Fansided is another broader site that includes a team of writers with local ties. Matthew Barlowe (Twitter=@matt_barlowe) and Chris Miracle (Twitter=@Chris_Miracle91) who are the 2 writers I am most familiar with both have local ties. Chris is a native and lives here now, and Matthew lived in Raleigh but recently moved and took his Canes hockey with him. Matthew is a great source for statistical analysis and Chris regularly breaks down the game in some detail. Check out Matthew’s statistical breakdown of the wild 8-6 win over the Canucks this week.

Canes Country at SBNation has arguably the largest writing team covering Hurricanes hockey. The fine team includes Jamie Kellner who is mentioned above and veteran Canes writer Brian LeBlanc. As noted above, the team is big, but I wanted to call out a couple of the “next generation” writers (with Twitter handles) who I am most familiar with at Canes Country — Brett Finger (@brettfinger), Matt Krombach (@mattkrombach) and Kyle Morton (@k_morton9).

Finally, Ben Case (Twitter=@BCase30) covers the Carolina Hurricanes at HockeyBuzz. I once knew a guy who yammered about the team over there. 🙂

 

If I missed any Canes-specific coverage that should be included, I apologize. Please holler at me via email or Twitter, and I will add it.

 

Also if you read something that you enjoy about the Carolina Hurricanes, please take a minute to share it on social media or point someone to it. Increasing the volume of time people spend engaged with Hurricanes hockey is part of the formula for continuing to grow our fan base and Hurricanes hockey community.

 

Go Canes!