When Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final was over, after general manager Jim Rutherford left the dressing room, he decided to go with the fans.

"I don't usually tailgate. But as you know, tailgating is a big thing here," he told the mass of media on press conference day yesterday prior to the Stanley Cup final.

"On the way out of the game my wife and I stopped with my assistant Kelly and I sat in a chair there and I looked around and remembered when I came here.

"It was just a big pile of dirt there.

"There wasn't any arena. There wasn't anything."

There certainly wasn't any hockey history.

"It was a pretty good moment to reflect a little on what really had happened," he said.

"Now there's a great buzz. I would say it's about four times bigger than it was in 2002," he said of the Carolina Hurricanes' much more shocking trip to the Cup final.

There's a lot of focus on these two small market franchises and how the lockout and resulting salary cap has helped get them here. You know the Oilers' story. The Hurricanes' tale is totally different. And it's nowhere near the same as 2002.

CAN'T REALLY COMPARE THE TWO YEARS

"It's a totally different situation," said the Canes GM who came with the franchise from Hartford and played games in Greensboro, North Carolina, an hour and a half away, while the arena was being constructed here.

"In 2002 we were a team that wasn't sure whether we were going to make the playoffs. Then the team came together at the right time and we got into the playoffs.

"This team we have now has a lot more depth and is a lot more balanced. It's more skilled and a lot more people contribute toward winning."

Captain Rod Brind 'Amour says it's a lot different going into this final than in 2002.

"We're just such a different team. We're a lot more confident going into this one than the last one. The last time we were in a final we were playing a Detroit Red Wings team that had eight million Hall of Fame players. They were all All-Stars. It just didn't match up. It didn't look like an evenly matched series whereas this one looks a lot more evenly matched.

"We're a much better team going into it now than we were then. It makes us feel a little better about it."

But this doesn't just go back four years.

It goes back to that pile of dirt.

"Hockey didn't exist as a sport, pretty much. It's come a long way. It's been exciting to see the growth. And I'm proud of it, actually, because I've been here since it started out," said Brind 'Amour.

SUBTLE BEGINNINGS

"I remember when we first came here. You go to different places and meet different people and we would actually have to explain to people why we were here," said Rutherford. "It was a long journey and a very difficult one. We moved the franchise in a matter of three months from Hartford. It should take 18 to 24 months to move a professional sports team. We went through those years in Greensboro.

"As we went along we could never get to a point where we could get that elite player to get us over the hump. We had competitive teams. We had good players like Ron Francis, Rod Brind 'Amour and Jeff O'Neill.

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"We made the playoffs a few years and had that good run in 2002," Rutherford said.

Then the wheels fell off. They went from the Stanley Cup final to finishing dead last.

"We had a bad year that turned into Eric Staal," is the way Rutherford describes the draft pick.

"You have to have that impact player."

The one thing both teams had in common coming out of the lockout is that they'd put together the nucleus of players, experience and young talents to surround with the appropriate free agents and deadline deals after the new CBA.

"It was pretty easy for us," said Rutherford. "We positioned ourselves to have flexibility coming out of the work stoppage.

"We knew there were going to be good players available because of the last couple of years we struggled when we were a non-playoff team. We were patient with our players that we wanted to keep.

"We felt we had a good structure there but that we had a few pieces to fit in.

"With the flexibility that we had and the fact we now have revenue sharing, it was really not that difficult.

"I know it's easy for me to sit here and say that now, but with the number of players that were out there, we needed to add some skill and we needed to add some mobile puck-moving defencemen. We knew there were going to be enough available (free agents) to do that."

That explains the Hurricanes. North Carolina itself is another animal. Being in the final four years ago had no effect on the seasons that followed.

But Rutherford said he was encouraged by the response of the core fans during the lockout.

"My confidence during the work stoppage was pretty good because we had a lot of loyal season ticket holders who kept their money with us. They didn't walk away and say 'We'll think about it after.'

"We still have a few hurdles here. We have partial season ticket holders and because of that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights are nights when they aren't season ticket holders, for about a dozen games.

"We have those weeknights we have to work on.

"But the population is growing and the growth is coming from the north where there are hockey teams.

"There's a bright future here for hockey."