Ward here to stay, but not to play

RALEIGH -- ******

CORRECTION

The departures of former Carolina Hurricanes Aaron Ward and Matt Cullen were incorrectly described in Ned Barnett's sports column Tuesday. Ward and Cullen signed with the New York Rangers as free agents.

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Aaron Ward, a big contributor to the Carolina Hurricanes winning the Stanley Cup, left for the New York Rangers two months ago via free agency. But he's having trouble going away.

At 10 a.m. most weekdays a handful of Hurricanes skate at their regular practice facility, the RecZone. Most mornings Ward skates with them -- a popular teammate turned lone Ranger. He doesn't wear the Canes colors, and he can't enter their locker room. But he still feels part of the team.

"I can't say that this transition is as easy as I thought it was going to be," said Ward, 33. He joined the Hurricanes in 2001 and was part of the team's two runs to the Stanley Cup finals.

This isn't the first time Ward has had to part company with teammates bonded by winning it all. Before joining the Hurricanes in 2001, he spent seven seasons with Detroit and was part of the Red Wings' back-to-back championship teams in 1997 and 1998.

In Detroit, he left well after the Cup euphoria passed. This time he's leaving while the Cup is still being passed around.

"It incites a little bit of a different emotion after you win the Cup and so quickly move on," he said.

Matt Cullen, another Cane who also left for the Rangers, sent Ward a joking text message from New York last week.

"He said he heard I was playing in Carolina and I needed to remember what team I'm playing for," Ward said.

Carolina's Erik Cole also joked about giving Ward a shove. He noted that Ward showed up at the RecZone too late for the backskating drills and jumped right into the game of pond hockey.

"We were kind of wondering where he was for the backskating part of today's session," Cole said Thursday. "We're going to have make a new rule that you have to be in the backskating if you want to participate in the fun."

His teammates, both former and current, can needle him all they want, but Ward's not leaving. The defenseman is looking forward to playing in New York, where he has a two-year, $5.5 million deal with the Rangers, but he's keeping his home in Cary. In the offseason, he will be there with his wife, Kelly, and their two children.

It's not just his Hurricanes pals that keep him here. It's the draw of the region that he and other hockey players find hard to give up.

Also on the ice at the RecZone was Bates Battaglia, another former Cane who never left. Now he's with the Toronto Maple Leafs, but he spends his offseason skating with Hurricanes and running his Raleigh bar -- "Lucky B's Around The Corner" -- just off of south Glenwood Avenue.

Future Hall of Famer Ron Francis played the last years of his career in Raleigh except for a brief stint in Toronto. Now he's raising his family here. Glen Wesley, a Hurricane who is nearing retirement, is likely to stay after he's done. Canes coach Peter Laviolette, a hockey nomad, says life in Raleigh has been so appealing for him and his family that it's easy to resist offers to coach elsewhere.

But none of them are bigger Triangle boosters than Ward, a native of Windsor, Ontario.

"It didn't just grow on us. It became part of our beings. We love North Carolina," Ward said of his family. "If you start making a list of the things you want out of life, I think this whole area contains all the criteria."

It's more than amenities that the Wards find appealing. It's the people, a mix of native Southerners and northern transplants like themselves. They've found it easy to meet neighbors and make friends.

"When you start to plant your roots here, it's really hard to change your mind," Ward said. "When your wife and family all feel the same way, it's got to tell you something."

That's a far different assessment from a hockey player than some "hockey towns" get. Chris Pronger barely had his skates off after the Stanley Cup finals before he demanded a trade out of Edmonton, saying his wife didn't like living there.

The Triangle may never have the hockey atmosphere and history of an Edmonton, Detroit, Montreal or Toronto, but Ward thinks it may develop into a place where players live out the Canes slogan: "Here to play, here to stay."

"We started something great here," Ward said of the Canes. "There are more and more guys deciding the Raleigh area is the place where they want to live."

For at least the next two years, Ward will have to play elsewhere. He's ready to go to New York, but he's not ready to leave the Triangle.

"As much as I know that I'm there, I still have a connection [here]," he said. "Even though I'm not gone, I miss it."