I was today days old when I learned a 70-year-old Canadian hockey broadcasting legend called the Carolina Hurricanes “a bunch of jerks” on national TV in February 2019 — and the team had T-shirts on sale within 24 hours, made it their entire brand, spelled “JERKS” out in fan seating at the home arena, and rode that energy from a 10-year playoff drought all the way to the 2026 Stanley Cup Final they’re playing in right now.
The setup:
October 7, 2018 was opening night of the 2018-19 NHL season for the Carolina Hurricanes. The Canes had just finished the prior year as the worst team in the Eastern Conference, hadn’t made the playoffs since 2009, had a new young head coach in Rod Brind’Amour, and had a new owner in Tom Dundon who’d just bought the team. After an 8-5 home win over the New York Rangers, the team did something nobody in pro hockey had ever done — they huddled at center ice, did a synchronized clap, and sprinted as a group into the boards. They called it the “Storm Surge.” It was a planned, choreographed post-win celebration, done only after home wins, and every game it got more elaborate. Limbo. A duck-duck-goose. Football field-goal kicks. A bowling-pin formation. Jumping into a fan-painted wall. The crowd loved it. NHL purists hated it.
The rant:
On February 16, 2019, the most powerful voice in Canadian hockey culture — Don Cherry, 84 at the time, four decades on Hockey Night in Canada’s “Coach’s Corner” — spent his segment slamming the Hurricanes for the celebrations. His exact words on air: “These guys, to me, are jerks… I don’t know who started this… They’re still not drawing. They’re still a bunch of jerks, as far as I’m concerned.” It was vintage Cherry: an opinion delivered from a lectern with no opposing voice in the room and the broadcasting authority of a man who’d been telling Canada what was true about hockey since 1980.
The 24-hour pivot:
Within 24 hours, the Hurricanes were selling “Bunch of Jerks” shirts. Within a week the team had a JumboTron graphic, in-arena chants, and a marketing pivot built around the slogan. Owner Tom Dundon leaned all the way in: BUNCH OF JERKS was painted across the rink boards, the word JERKS got spelled out in fan T-shirt colors in the lower-bowl seating, and the team store sold more “Bunch of Jerks” merch in the next month than it had sold of anything else all season. The team rode the energy through the rest of the regular season into the playoffs as a wild-card seed, beat the defending Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals in seven games in Round 1, swept the New York Islanders in Round 2, and made the conference final for the first time in over a decade.
The seven-year tail:
The cultural pivot didn’t fade after the 2019 run. It became the franchise. The Hurricanes still do home post-win celebrations every game — the format has changed but the spirit hasn’t. The “Bunch of Jerks” merch is still on shelves seven years later. Lenovo Center (formerly PNC Arena) in Raleigh still has the JERKS spell-out moments. And the same coaching staff, ownership, and identity that started in 2018-19 is the one currently in the 2026 Stanley Cup Final against the Vegas Golden Knights — the team’s first Cup Final appearance since 2006. As of this writing the series is tied 2-2 and Game 5 is in Vegas this week.
The footnote nobody talks about:
Don Cherry was fired from Hockey Night in Canada the following November (2019) for a separate “Coach’s Corner” segment about immigrants and Remembrance Day poppies. The Hurricanes are in the Stanley Cup Final.
Where to find it:
- The team: nhl.com/hurricanes
- The merch: bunchofjerks.com and the team store at Lenovo Center
- The 2026 Stanley Cup Final: on TNT / truTV in the US, Sportsnet in Canada — Game 5 this week