Everyone wants to go to Edmonton
This picture wasn't taken in Edmonton's future
If you believe the Edmonton Sun, long gone are the days of players eschewing the Oilers to go to hockey hotbeds like Washington, as Michael Nylander did two seasons ago.
Erik Cole is now a golden god, instead of a mere Stanley Cup winner, because he’s been traded to the City of Champions.
When the Carolina Hurricanes traded Erik Cole to Edmonton, Cole immediately traded in his role as a largely ignored athlete in a third-tier sport.He’s an Oiler now. That means he’s a rock star.
He won’t be playing fifth fiddle to NCAA basketball, NASCAR racing, NFL Football, and the occasional dog-fighting ring.
Cole could best be said to be putting a good face on a rather bad situation (Edmonton, yeesh), and Carolina’s certainly in the middle of something of a crisis. Only 10 percent of North Carolina residents would go to a Canes game over the Charlotte Bobcats, UNC or Duke basketball, NASCAR, or the Carolina Panthers.
Good news now for Cole’s family though:
“My kids are really excited that they’re going to see a winter. I called my daughter yesterday and told her we were here and the first thing she asked was how much snow is there. I told her it won’t snow till late October or November, then you’ll be able to go outside and play in it.”
What he didn’t tell her about was a little stretch called January and February. As one former HFBoards poster once eloquently said of E-Town, “Poor people die in the streets there because of cold and ice bears.”
