RALEIGH, N.C. - Earlier this week, Carolina Hurricanes forward Sebastian Aho joined The Players' Tribune to pen a letter to Canes fans, touching on the City of Raleigh, Rod Brind'Amour, Jordan Staal, and more.
Enjoy an excerpt from the article below, and read the entire letter here.
I think about the playoff losses a lot. It hurt then, and it hurts now. Each one of them stays with me. It stays with us. We have scar tissue. That’s the honest truth. There’s no point in lying about it. It’s there. And it’s a part of who this team is, of who we’re going to be. And I’m thinking about it now, not because I’m taking the regular season for granted, or because we’re already thinking ahead. It’s actually the opposite of that. This year's team, we don’t want to just be talented, or a tight group, we want to have a real identity. Something that we can rely on, no matter what happens during a month, or game, or series. Something that we know is us — something that is true to Hurricane hockey, through and through.
And that thing is simple: Hard work.
I don’t care at all if you think it’s a cliché.
We’ve come up short six years in a row. And each year we try to learn from it and make changes and do something different. Sometimes maybe we’ve tried to be things we aren’t. It happens. And there are teams all around the league who have certain styles of play, or things they’re great at. And so do we. But what I want is for us to be the hardest-working team in the league. The team that doesn’t leave a stone unturned. First ones in, last ones out. That type of stuff. Because when we break through, when we finally lift the Cup, it will because of all the reps before that moment. All the hard work. That’s the way through.
Everybody is a loser until they’re a winner.
