The Carolina Hurricanes just won the Stanley Cup, which should mean this is a story about the players who got them there. Instead, everyone's talking about Tom Dundon's family tree. The Hurricanes owner had his wife Veruschka and all 5 of his kids -- Caden, Dax, Drew, Blake and Tagan -- engraved onto the Cup right behind his own name, occupying the top 2 of 15 lines reserved for the organization. That's ahead of front-office staff, coaches, and yes, actual players who suited up for the run.
It's not a hypothetical either. Franchises get to decide who from the non-playing side gets etched, and Dundon had full authority to make the call. But that authority came at a cost -- forward Joel Nystrom, who played 38 regular-season games for Carolina, missed the automatic 41-game threshold for Cup eligibility by just 3 games. Teams can petition the NHL to add players who fall short, and reporting has pointed to Nystrom as the guy fans think got squeezed out while 7 Dundons got real estate on the trophy instead.
Naturally, the internet turned it into a bit. Big Cat's not wrong that this Hurricanes team rolled -- Carolina's depth and structure were the story of their whole postseason -- but Barstool's crew has been running with the joke that the Dundon family itself was the actual top line driving play.
I will always remember the dominant top 2 lines of Dundons and how they tilted the ice
The follow-up post pushed the bit even further, dubbing the family unit the "Dundon-Dundon-Dundon line" -- as if mom, dad and the kids were out there tilting the ice themselves. It's a joke, obviously, but it's landing because it captures exactly what's bugging people: a trophy meant to honor a team effort now reads like a family Christmas card up top.
Never forget how dominant the Dundon-Dundon-Dundon line was https://t.co/v8Iic64ig5
Dundon isn't the first owner to get his family engraved on the Cup, and the NHL has no rule against it -- that's part of why this keeps getting litigated online instead of settled. But the optics are rough when a guy with school-age kids gets priority over a player who actually skated shifts for the team. Whether the league or the Hurricanes address the Nystrom situation is the thing worth watching next; the engraving itself, once it's done, is permanent.