The Carolina Hurricanes head coach gave to Mitt Romney.

Peter Laviolette, the Stanley Cup-winning coach of the Triangle-area hockey team, paid $500 to attend an Aug. 30 fundraiser for the former Massachusetts governor at the Wakefield home of Jim Rutherford, the team's general manager, according to campaign finance reports.

Another sort-of Cane at the event: NAI Carolantic Realty owner Steve Stroud, a board member of the Centennial Authority, which owns the Hurricanes' home, the RBC Center.

Former Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr, who is running for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, also paid $500 to meet Romney.

"He's an exceptionally bright guy, obviously very capable," Orr said, though he noted he has not yet chosen a Republican presidential candidate.

The event's sponsors declined to say the amount raised, though campaign finance reports show Romney raised about $23,000 on Aug. 30 and 31 from about two-dozen Triangle-area residents. If so, that's about a fourth what organizers hoped to raise.

Don Beason has not been reappointed to the Centennial Authority.

The top-ranked lobbyist was not reappointed to the board that oversees the RBC Center, but it's not because of the $500,000 loan he gave to disgraced former House Speaker Jim Black, Dan Kane reports.

Beason's four-year appointment ran out June 30, and House Speaker Joe Hackney had decided months earlier to appoint Harold Hart, a Pittsboro businessman, according to Hackney's spokesman, Bill Holmes.

Hackney also decided to reappoint Michael Weeks, a former Wake County commissioner and a Democrat, to another four-year term. The appointments are part of an omnibus appointments bill that is expected to clear the legislature before it finishes its business, possibly today.

Other members of the 21-person board are appointed by the N.C. Senate, the city of Raleigh, Wake County, the Wake County Mayors Association and the chancellor of N.C. State University.