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Closer to home, Francis has quietly worked with the area's youth hockey organizations and helped to create a formal partnership between the Hurricanes and the Raleigh Youth Hockey Association.

As a coach -- his two sons play youth hockey -- and as a diplomatic negotiator between competing youth hockey leagues, Francis has helped cultivate a boom that counts more than 1,500 hockey-playing youths in the Raleigh area.

The efforts led to the March launch of the Carolina Hurricanes-sponsored Canes Youth and Amateur Hockey program, which sponsors the Triangle's Junior Hurricanes teams and promotes the growth of hockey in the region. The teams include Raleigh's first AAA-level program, the top level of USA Hockey competition.

Jeffrey Maness, the president of the Junior Hurricanes AAA hockey program, first began talking with Francis several years ago about developing the program and working to consolidate different programs and seek ways to improve youth hockey in the area.

"He's very much a visionary," said Maness, a North Carolina native and a partner with a global management and technology consulting firm. "Being part of the Hall of Fame, he commands a fair amount of respect, but he never uses it in his approach. It's very low-key, he uses his influence very carefully. But we clearly would not have attained this AAA status and the growth that we're seeing without having Ron Francis be a part of it."

'It's not about the parents'

Along with working to persuade different leagues and area hockey programs to unify their efforts, Francis helped ensure the resulting hockey program would offer as broad an appeal as possible, from elite travel teams competing at the top youth levels to recreational "house" leagues.

"Let's do what's right for the kids. It's not about the parents. It's not about the coaches or building necessarily the greatest team," Francis said. "The values we instill in kids through competitive games and practices and hard work and teamwork and etc., that's kind of where we want to go with the program, more so than, 'Hey, we're just going to turn everybody into NHL hockey players.' "

Paul Strand learned how committed Francis was to deepening hockey's roots in the Triangle during the Hurricanes' 2006 playoff run to the Stanley Cup title. A month and a half into the playoffs, Strand, the Hurricanes' youth and amateur hockey coordinator, was swamped with promotional work for the team when he received a voice mail from Francis.

"I know you guys are busy," Strand recalled the message beginning, but Francis just wanted to let him know that he, Maness and others had continued to meet and talk about youth hockey programs.

"You got the idea that really, truly what he wants to do is grow the sport of hockey," Strand said.

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