Red & Black Hockey
Could it be Goodnight for Carolina?
by David Lee on 05/24/10 at 08:17 PM ET
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Reports came out of Raleigh on Monday that Peter Karmanos, owner of the Carolina Hurricanes and Compuware Corporation, is looking to sell “part” of the team. This does NOT in any way mean that the entire team is for sale. It does NOT in any way mean that the team is going to relocate back to Hartford, or anywhere else for that matter. In fact, quite the contrary.
On September 28, 2008, part owner Tom Thewes died from leukemia. Since then, Karmanos has had full ownership of the team. His goal here is to, first of all, square away the Thewes estate, and secondly to find a local individual or group to take minority ownership of the team. Karmanos has enlisted the help of New York firm Allen&Co to find a buyer in the Raleigh area.
In a brief statement, Karmanos said: “The intent is in no way to sell the team. We simply hired Allen & Co. to assist us with the process of finding a new minority partner.”
I’d be surprised if that minority partner turns out to be anybody other than James Goodnight from SAS.
Earlier this spring, there was some talk that Karmanos was going to tidy up some business in Michigan and move down here to be closer to the team. This appears not to be the case, but in a way, it is a step in that direction. One of the complaints that Caniacs have had about the team is that Mr Karmanos is a proxy owner. Even with his son in the front office, this doesn’t sit well with some Canes fans. If a Raleigh based group or individual takes on a percentage of the team. that might help to assuage these concerns.
Whenever stories like this surface, hockey fans in Hartford, Hamilton, Winnipeg, Kansas City, Toronto and Quebec City begin to salivate. However, this isn’t one where the final line is “and then the team moved”.
Mr. Goodnight, who I presume to be a buyer, is a North Carolina native, a graduate of NC State University, and is the CEO of SAS, a computer software giant based in Cary. He also heads up Cary Academy, a private middle/high school near the SAS campus. SAS is already a primary corporate sponsor of the Hurricanes and it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see North Carolina’s wealthiest man take the opportunity to purchase a share of the team.
As an aside, SAS was recently ranked by Fortune Magazine as #1 in its “100 best companies to work for”.
If Goodnight has any interest—and I assume he does—this “search” shouldn’t take long at all.
Filed in: | Red and Black Hockey | Permalink
Tags: Carolina+Hurricanes, James+Goodnight., Peter+Karmanos,
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About Red & Black Hockey
David Lee is a restaurant manager with an unused degree in political science. He can be found at Carolina Hurricanes games, Scrabble tournaments and indie-rock shows. Sometimes, all in the same day.
David has contributed to CBC.ca for their Stanley Cup playoff coverage in 2006 and to the New York Times Slapshot blog for theirs in 2008. Red and Black Hockey was founded in July of 2005.
