Interview with the Hurricanes

Honestly, I think I was more excited about being in the Carolina Hurricanes meeting room today at the West Hollywood hotel ‘W’ than Brandon Gormley was.

Gormley admittedly has been through this kind of thing literally dozens of times in the past month with various NHL teams. And it showed. Gormley was a pro as he answered one question after another.

To use a horse-racing analogy, Gormley is on the home stretch. This time tomorrow he will know which NHL city he will be calling his second home. But before he dons that jersey and cap, he must go through some last minute meetings with teams on the fence over whether to select him or not.

Today, it’s Carolina and Florida. Carolina picks seventh, so the likelihood of Gormley landing in Raleigh are slim. But as GM Hurricanes Jim Rutherford explained to me, his team could trade up before tomorrow night, and so they want to be prepared in case Gormley is still available.

I told Rutherford that Rick Vaive holds the distinction of being the highest selected NHL pick from P.E.I. when he was taken fifth overall in 1979. Rutherford paused, and then said he expects Gormley to either match that or do better. Rutherford said Gormley sits at No. 5 on his team’s list.

One of the most interesting things about being in the room while Gormley was interviewed by Carolina was how the team uses technology.

On a far wall sat a large plasma television, with a freeze-framed NHL game. Hall-of-famer Ron Francis asked Gormley to analyze the positional play of the defenceman. And before he pressed play on tape, Francis asked Gormley to tell him how the young prospect would try to shut down that particular offensive rush.

Gormley explained how his Moncton Wildcats coach Danny Flynn taught him to play that kind of rush. Francis then let the tape roll, and asked Gormley to keep talking about how he would execute that play.

“I’d definitely go down in that situation,” Gormley said, referring to what he’d do to thwart a cross-ice pass.

Rutherford later told me there’s no right or wrong answer in how he prospects answer these questions. But I have to think it gives the team tremendous insight into what a player would do in real life, and whether that answer would fit into a team’s particular philosophy.

When Gormley finished the interview, I asked him if it was a bit intimidating to be asked questions by an NHL hall-of-famer in Ron Francis. Gormley smiled, paused, and said he’s getting used to it, referring to how he recently went out to dinner with another superstar, Tampa Bay’s new GM, Steve Yzerman.

It’s a good thing Gormley’s getting used to rubbing shoulders with hall-of-famers. He’ll soon have to smash shoulders of future hall-of-famers in the NHL.