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Retire Vasicek's Jersey

Saw this in the Facebook group, and I'm in the "no" column on the retirement of anyone's number right now. Not Vasicek, not Cam Ward, not Justin Williams if/when he makes his decision final, and not Eric Staal when he also retires. This organization has screwed up a lot in this area, and Big Joe would be another mistake.
 
Yeah, I'm a "no" on that bloggopinion.

After that day, for the rest of the 2011-2012 season, the Carolina Hurricanes honored him by wearing a patch on their jerseys, then again by naming an end of the year award after him given to a players for outstanding cooperation with local media.
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This, from the blog, was both appropriate and sufficient to honor him. No disrespect to Big Joe (RIP) at all. but #63's not rafters-worthy. If they want to continue to just not issue the number, as they do with #3, that's fine, but no more.

#12 and #30 at least have some on-ice case for more, so we'll see what they eventually do with those... I'd say no right now.
 
Yeah. Nobody loved Big Joe more than me and it's still a "no." The club already has a number of perfectly appropriate memoriums in place that are scaled to correctly honor Vasicek's actual legacy. There is a high standard of requirements to have a jersey retired and the big fella just wasn't that kind of player.

Of the others I would say both Staal and Ward deserve at least a conversation, but I would also lean towards no. Ward is going to get support because of his volume numbers, but you guy know where I stand on him. He was an elite goaltender for parts of three seasons and for two post season runs. Otherwise he was just slightly above average for the vast majority of his career. Staal isn't a lot different. He was a point per game player for 3 of his 12 seasons in Raleigh and managed as many maddeningly mediocre seasons as truly good ones. Truth is, a franchise that kept on winning after 2006 wouldn't be honoring guys like that with their highest honors because others would have eclipsed them by now. The Canes just spent a decade with nobody doing much of anything ... and those two guys were at the helm for much of it.
 
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Loved Big Joe, but there's no way his accomplishments are close to deserving a retired jersey. I echo the comments above that the organization has honored his memory appropriately.
 
I appreciate the 63 patch on uniforms, but jersey retirement is not merited in this situation.
 
Speaking of retired jerseys, I'm impressed that Sean Hill has let the team unretire his #22 for Brett Pesce. Mighty big of him.

If I'm retiring anymore numbers, I'm starting with the Secret Weapon. You know, the guy with the same amount of playoff OT goals as Brett Hull and Peter Forsberg? Gotta be a natural goal scorer to do that, right? Yeah.
 
I didn't realize that the State B-ball jerseys in the rafters were to honor without retiring the numbers. I have long thought that we should emulate that!

And my thought was/is based on the Habs doing that, hanging jerseys and sweaters for honor to deserving players without retiring the numbers.

Number 9 will probably always be non-issued and maybe #3 should be reconsidered considering the circumstances of his passing. Those of us who have been around since the Canes beginning will always remember Steve Chiasson but should no one ever wear #3 again?
 
3 and 9 are only "retired" in practice ... which is fine in both cases. As for anyone else, an exceptionally high standard is actually easier to maintain than a lower bar would be. IMO it should be 100% obvious that a player's number be retired or else skip it and do something else.
 
Random comment but I sort of like the idea of hanging jerseys and leaving numbers open for use. #3 will always be The Intimidator to me (Dale Earnhardt) but you still see his number buzzing around the track. Matter of fact it actually makes me remember him a bit more.
 
HurryCanes said:
Random comment but I sort of like the idea of hanging jerseys and leaving numbers open for use. #3 will always be The Intimidator to me (Dale Earnhardt) but you still see his number buzzing around the track. Matter of fact it actually makes me remember him a bit more.
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when Earnhardt died NASCAR said they don't control the car numbers , the drivers pick them from unused numbers so NASCAR said they would not retire #3.

Some motorcycle racing groups award the season winner #1 but often the winner does not use it, they stick with the number they already use.
 
In NASCAR the owners have the rights to the number and because of how sponsorships work some numbers are very valuable in terms of branding etc. so they don’t retire numbers.
 
Look ... teams should just do whatever they think is best and stick to it. It's kind of endearing that Montreal has so many retired numbers that their young players tend to gravitate towards keeping their training camp numbers. It's been that way long enough that it's sort of their thing. Fine. But whatever way you start, stick to it.
 
cmon3 said:
In NASCAR the owners have the rights to the number and because of how sponsorships work some numbers are very valuable in terms of branding etc. so they don’t retire numbers.
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Yup. I guess my point is that IF the sport thought it was that important that they retire them, then the culture would dictate that they (owner, etc) retire them. it's obviously not felt to be that critical or they would. And I still think it sucks that someone else is out there driving with Dale's number. LOL.
 
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