John Forslund, former voice of the Canes, returns to PNC Arena with Seattle Kraken
John Forslund will be back on the fifth level of PNC Arena on Sunday, high above the ice, his TV headset on, his preparation done and his notes neatly arranged as he calls a Carolina Hurricanes hockey game.
It will be the first time since Feb. 28, 2020 that Forslund has done that, but it won’t be anything like old times.
It will be different and perhaps difficult, he said. And, surely bittersweet.
Forslund will be in the visiting TV broadcast booth Sunday night as the play-by-play announcer for the Seattle Kraken, an NHL expansion team seeking a second victory this inaugural season against the team that Forslund once helped establish in the Triangle market while becoming a big part of its brand.
Forslund has been back to PNC Arena. He was at N.C. State’s basketball game against Notre Dame on Feb. 5 — during the NHL All-Star break — to watch his younger daughter, Kara, participate with a dance team at halftime.
“We got some seats in the club level and I didn’t know how that was going to feel,” Forslund said Tuesday in an interview with the News & Observer. “I hadn’t been in the building since February of 2020 and I’m kind of glad I was in the building at least, so I don’t have to walk in for (Sunday’s) game for the first time.
“To be honest, I don’t know how it’s going to be to work a game there. I know what I’m banking on is that I’ve got a job to do and I’m going to go in there and do my job. I hope it’s a good game. But it’s going to be weird because of the way it all ended.”
Forslund’s difficult exit
There’s a bit of sadness attached to that comment. Forslund was once a fixture for the Canes, and a fixture at PNC Arena for more than 20 years. He and his family moved from Hartford, Connecticut, to Raleigh in 1997 when the Whalers relocated and transformed into the Hurricanes. The voice of the Whalers became the voice of the Canes.
Forslund was PNC Arena for all the big moments — the Hurricanes’ first game there in 1999, the first Stanley Cup Final games in 2002, the winning of a Stanley Cup in 2006, some thrilling victories in the 2009 playoffs. He was friendly with Canes fans, willing to answer questions and help educate them on the sport. He was the same with media members and anyone else who approached him.
But the pandemic changed everything. It stopped the NHL regular season in its tracks in March 2020. Forslund had been trying to negotiate a new contract with the team, but there would be no agreement given the unpredictability of the 2020-21 season and how many games might be played in the NHL — if they played.
“The pandemic came and then it just all went away,” Forslund said.
Forslund’s long association with the Hurricanes ended. Others also have left the franchise — longtime radio voice Chuck Kaiton and equipment manager Skip Cunningham, and then former PNC Arena general manager Dave Olsen, who died in January, a few months after parting ways with the Hurricanes.
And, of course, Ron Francis. The Hockey Hall of Famer was executive vice president and general manager of the Hurricanes until Tom Dundon became the new team owner and brought about substantial change. Francis left after the 2017-18 season.
A new beginning in Seattle
Francis soon was hired to be the new GM of the NHL’s newest team. The Kraken were looking for a TV play-by-play announcer and one of the best was available. Francis and Forslund were reunited, Forslund traveling back and forth from Seattle to Raleigh before — and during — the season to spend time when he can with his family.
“I’m invigorated by this position here and they’ve been great to me,” Forslund said. “Other than navigating our lives I don’t look at it as a negative but more of a challenge. I miss ‘em but what can you do? Kara is in her last year of high school and we’re not going to uproot her.
“Raleigh, that’s our life. That’s the hard part of this whole thing and how it went down.”
Forslund once called NHL games for the NBC Sports Network, but that went away when the league signed new deals with ABC, ESPN and Turner Sports. He was set to call women’s hockey for NBC in the Winter Olympics, but had that assignment end when the NHL said their players would not participate and then rescheduled games — including some of the Kraken’s — into the February time slot.
With Kraken games to call, Forslund missed out on the Olympic coverage. He did recently handle NHL radio play-by-play in the Stadium Series outdoor game between Tampa Bay and Nashville, and has worked for Turner.
While Forslund once had Tripp Tracy by his side analyzing the Canes games, he now has the son of a former N.C. State football hero as his analyst. J.T. Brown, whose father, Ted, set ACC rushing records for the Pack in the 1970s, is in his first season as a broadcast analyst after playing 365 games in the NHL and a year in Sweden.
“To be able to see how he prepares and how much work, in my eyes, one of the best to ever do it puts in, it helps me and motivates me to do the same amount,” Brown said in an N&O interview. “To have a mentor, a friend in this phase, especially after coming over from playing and not knowing a whole lot about what it took, it’s hard to put into words the motivation he has been.
“He’s a big part of why I feel like made improvement from day one to where we are now. He has such a passion for the game.”
Kraken struggle in first season
The Kraken’s first season hasn’t been as good as they hoped, with the Vegas Golden Knights setting the bar very high. Vegas reached the Stanley Cup final in its inaugural 2018 season before losing to the Washington Capitals.
The Kraken (17-35-5) believed they had put together a competitive team through the expansion draft, especially with goalies Philipp Grubauer and Chris Driedger and some solid defensemen. Ticket sales maxed out and home games at Climate Pledge Arena have been sellouts. The enthusiasm is there.
But on the ice, the first season has been more of a slow go. No Vegas repeat. Seattle, which lost Saturday at Washington, has gone 1-7-1 in its last nine games.
“When a team like Vegas goes on a run like they have it’s natural for the media, the fans, the team itself, the ownership, everyone, to expect more than we’ve seen,” Forslund said. “The group has played to the level of expansion teams that we’ve seen in the past.
“I thought they’d be a little bit better, thought they’d be in and around the bubble in terms of making the playoffs. I don’t think anybody thought the three California teams would play as good as they have, so in a division that seemed there for the taking it has been more competitive, harder. The Kraken had a tough time with COVID as many teams have and don’t have the depth of players to pluck out of the minors because they don’t have enough pros signed yet.”
Forslund said Francis’ approach will be drafting and developing players, much as he tried to do as GM with the Hurricanes. The Golden Knights, he said, “mortgaged a little bit of the future” by signing some big free agents who were older players and making some trades.
“There’s pressure on (Francis) and he knows that but he’s got the courage of his convictions,” Forslund said. “He’ll stand on what he believes in and I think he believes in taking that kind of calculated approach.
“He had the ability to go to the (salary) cap and didn’t want to go to the cap in the first year. He wanted to get a read on where everybody is. And the team could change a lot by March 21 and the trade deadline. Ron could accrue picks, he could accrue prospects, he could get some roster players. We’ll see what happens.”
The Kraken beat the Canes 2-1 on Nov. 24 in Seattle. Defenseman Brendan Smith was the only one to beat Grubauer, who had 35 saves. Because of COVID-19 restrictions, Forslund was not able to be around the Canes before the game, saying he did text the coaches afterward.
“I told them, ‘I’ll see you down the road’ and all that,” Forslund said.
The road finally brings him back to Raleigh on Sunday, back to PNC Arena once again.
This story was originally published March 4, 2022 at 8:12 AM with the headline "John Forslund, former voice of the Canes, returns to PNC Arena with Seattle Kraken."
