It wasn't Erik Cole's unique combination of speed, size and skill that reminded Deborah Halaby of the son she lost so long ago, although that certainly helped make her a fan of the former Carolina Hurricanes forward.

There was more to it than that, something harder to define about the unspoken braggadocio embodied in Cole's bull-rushes past flat-footed defensemen and his occasional petulance with the officials that stirred her emotions -- and her memories.

"The arrogance -- his whole stance," Halaby says. "Something just clicked. Every time I saw him, it was just Michael. When Erik got hurt and they'd show him on the Jumbotron, my seatmates would look over at me and I'd be crying."

Halaby was entranced. Her son committed suicide in 1992, when he was 20. Nine years later a 22-year-old Cole skated into her life to help, in some small way, fill the void.

When Halaby faced the difficult choice the past two winters of keeping her Hurricanes season tickets in section 117 of the RBC Center or replacing a broken furnace at her Clayton home, the office manager for Walker Auto Stores in Raleigh chose ice over heat and cranked up the gas logs.

When the Canes traded Cole to the Edmonton Oilers for young defenseman Joni Pitkanen on July 1, Halaby was shattered. Heartbroken isn't the word. She is no stranger to loss, but experience in that area does not translate to consolation.

She played blackjack with Cole at the Hurricanes' charity casino night. She sent him a get-well card when he broke his neck in 2006. She made her way to the RBC Center in sickness and in health. And when her cell phone and office phone rang simultaneously just as her boss walked in with the bad news, she cursed a blue streak.

"My skin had goosebumps," Halaby says. "I went ballistic. I never had words like that come out of my mouth. Really bad words."

Just as it's easy for fans to forget that professional sports are, above all else, a business, it's easy for teams to forget that fandom is, at heart, about love -- or a version of it.

That bond, between fan and team or fan and player, is at the most elemental level what provokes fans to pay a significant amount of money for tickets in the first place.

And while a professional team is always going to do what's in its best interest, whether that concerns the short-term bottom line or long-term profitability -- and shouldn't be begrudged that right -- it's worth pointing out that there can be less calculable costs behind any move.

From the Hurricanes' perspective, the Cole trade made sense in every way. He was in the final year of his contract, with no guarantee the Canes would be able to re-sign him. They were dealing from strength (a surplus of scoring forwards) to address a weakness (a paucity of decent defensemen). An older player was exchanged for a younger one.

That logic was, and remains, unassailable. That Cole loved playing for the Hurricanes and living in the Triangle and ranked among the team's most popular players was merely collateral damage from a trade that was otherwise a slam dunk.

Losing one season-ticket holder was a small price to pay, although Halaby did get an unexpected phone call from Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford, who was touched by her story and wanted to offer an explanation, however inadequate it might be to her.

Just as he empathized with her concerns, she understood his logic. She knows it's a business. She just couldn't imagine that could ever intrude on her little hockey world.

Fans are free to exercise the same business calculus as the team, even if few will come to the same decision as Halaby: that the sacrifices she once made for the Hurricanes aren't worth it any more -- except for one night, Nov. 1, when Cole returns to the RBC Center with the Oilers.

"I still love the hockey team, but I think Jim Rutherford has made a big mistake," Halaby says. "I can't support that. I may be one out of thousands, but that's just who I am."

With the money she'll save on hockey tickets, Deborah Halaby may finally get that furnace fixed, although paying a few bills is an attractive option as well.

Her heat may or may not be on this winter. Either way her world will be a little colder.

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