Notebook: Hurricanes have special bottle for victory toast

While the Hurricanes spent a couple of days this week angrily denying Sabres coach Lindy Ruff's charge they had champagne on ice waiting in their locker room before Game 6, Carolina coach Peter Laviolette admitted he did have a bottle of wine prepared for the deciding game in the Eastern Conference final.

Rod Brind'Amour is in line for a sentimental bottle of wine. (Getty Images)

And a very special one at that. Problem was he never got it to intended recipient, team captain Rod Brind'Amour.

"I haven't seen him since the chaos broke loose last night," said Brind'Amour, who scored the game-winning goal, during a league conference call Friday.

Laviolette brought the bottle with him to the podium after his team eliminated the Sabres with a 4-2 victory in Game 7, explaining that it was given to him by the father of a 6-year-old girl in his neighborhood who is suffering from leukemia. He said he had befriended the family when he first moved to Raleigh and had watched her go into remission after undergoing chemotherapy, only to discover she suffered a relapse a couple of months ago.

As a result, the Hurricanes coach got involved with the local Leukemia Society and throughout the playoffs has worn the wristband they sell to raise money and awareness; it bears the word "relentless." The bottle says relentless as well, and the family intended that it be given to the player who best exemplified that attitude.

"Her name is Julia Rowe," Laviolette said "and what makes the bottle special is that a little girl signed it."

No time for sightseeing

Nothing like spending a few days of spring in New York, but for the Edmonton Oilers, a quick trip to the Big Apple has been all about business -- and getting away from the white-hot spotlight the team has been under at home since clinching a trip to the Stanley Cup Finals.

Edmonton has become a "zoo," said Oilers coach Craig MacTavish, with players being inundated with interview requests and family and friends looking for tickets to the team's first championship round in 16 years. With eight days to kill between games, the team figured the best thing was to get out of Dodge.

"There are a lot of distractions," MacTavish said.

Fortunately, MacTavish has a good contact with someone in New York, Rangers general manager Glen Sather, who of course held that post for more than two decades with the Oilers. Edmonton flew in Thursday and has been using the Rangers' practice facility.

"We both had kind of earmarked an area that could be central or in between the two potential cities that we're going to," GM Kevin Lowe said. "And I don't know if we've got it dialed in, but it's pretty close on the geography side of things.

"It's very humid in the East right now, and Edmonton is very dry climate. We knew we were going east and we knew we were starting out on the road, so we wanted to move out a couple days before to allow the players to acclimatize out a little bit."

And maybe to get lost in the crowd, which is easy to do in New York.