RALEIGH - The moving van pulled up to Aaron Ward's house in Cary in May. It was making a delivery to the Triangle from Detroit, an area better known for being an offseason home of NHL players. Ward left the Carolina Hurricanes, but he didn't leave the area.

Ten years after the team arrived in North Carolina from Connecticut, the Triangle is starting to become a destination for many current and former NHL players, attracting free agents to sign with the Hurricanes and retaining those who played here.

Ward signed with the New York Rangers after the Hurricanes' 2006 Stanley Cup run and was traded to the Boston Bruins in midseason.

He kept his house in Cary and this summer moved to North Carolina for good from suburban Detroit. His family will remain here until training camp opens in Boston in September.

He's far from alone.

Ron Francis is the most notable, but he's joined by current NHL players such as Ward and Toronto Maple Leafs forward Bates Battaglia, who owns the Glenwood South bar Lucky B's.

Former Hurricanes Steve Halko and Robert Kron chose to settle in the Triangle after completing their NHL careers, and Tom Barrasso, who played only five months for the Hurricanes during the 2001-02 season, has looked into buying a house here.

"Now we'll be able to field a team for alumni games," Ward said. "We can play the cops and firefighters -- and we'll be young enough to beat the other alumni teams."

They all stayed for the same reason that free agents such as Cory Stillman and Ray Whitney chose to sign with the Hurricanes, the reason that Canes captain Rod Brind'Amour re-signed with the team when he had a chance to leave in 2001 and why Scott Walker did the same this summer.

It's a curious twist, given that when the Hurricanes moved to North Carolina in 1997, one of the knocks against the franchise around the league was that free agents would not want to live in the area.

"Once you get here and play for a year or two and start getting the feel of the city and the people and the town and the organization, there's nowhere better," Brind'Amour said. "The grass isn't greener somewhere else. I think that's what you're starting to see now. Guys want to stay here."

It started with Francis, who was voted into the Hockey Hall of Fame last month and will be inducted in November. When the call came, he was at the home he built for his family in north Raleigh, the home where they settled.

His No. 10 has been retired by the Hurricanes, and only Wayne Gretzky recorded more assists than Francis did in a 23-year career. As captain, he led the Hurricanes to the 2002 Stanley Cup finals. Now, Francis works in the team's front office and has taken an interest in local youth hockey.

But his lasting impact on hockey in North Carolina may have been his decision to sign with the franchise as a free agent in the summer of 1998.

"When I first got down here, I felt really comfortable," Francis said. "I enjoyed the climate, enjoyed the city, enjoyed the people that I met. The pace of life is a little bit slower. I remember saying to my wife it was nice going someplace where people would hold the door open or say good morning to you, people that you didn't know.

"It was just sort of a comfortable place to be, which I really enjoy. I'm more of the small town mentality than the big city. Not that Raleigh's a small town by any means, but that attitude was what I enjoyed the most."

As notable as his signing was, a quieter transaction may have had as much of an impact. Traded to Carolina in 2000 against his will, Brind'Amour could have left as a free agent after the 2001-02 season. Instead, he signed a long-term deal in the fall of 2001.

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