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As the Carolina Hurricanes plowed through the playoffs, Raleigh vibrated.
The ecstatic tension in the summer heat built over the weeks. People felt it, they thought it, and they whispered it—this was going to be the year the Canes captured the Cup again.
As the Canes swept the first two rounds of the playoffs and then the Eastern Conference Finals, watch parties popped up all across the city.
Moore Square opened up, and when the crowds grew too big they moved the party to Red Hat Amphitheater. Chants of “Let’s Go Canes!” ricocheted across downtown Raleigh.
The Rialto Theater on Glenwood Avenue opened its doors to Caniacs during the playoffs for the second year in a row. I worked some of those shifts. As I slung popcorn and beer to fans, I could feel the intensity of community the run was creating. The same people kept coming back, game after game, claiming the same seats they sat in all through the run. Everyone has their own superstitions.
There were families with young kids and older fans who remember the last serious run, in 2006. A group of teenagers from the Five Points neighborhood brought pool noodles and led the theater in chants. Fans hung on every goal, every missed shot, every killed power play.
It was raucous. It was fun. It was hot and sweaty. It was magical.
Business partners Jade Rader and Hayes Permar, who took over the Rialto in 2023, put community at the heart of their vision for its rebirth. Meeting that mission is part planned and part improvisation.
“The word ‘community’ would often be the first words spoken when envisioning the future of the Rialto,” Rader said. “I think the Canes games are a perfect example of how we hoped [to have] multifaceted programming every night.”
For Mariana Fabian, 24, working the watch parties was exhausting, but made them feel more connected to patrons and coworkers alike.
“It was just so nice to see the same people over and over again and they started recognizing me,” Fabian said. “We kind of gained this camaraderie.”
Nate Grady, 20, brought his Polaroid camera to the theater to capture moments from Game 6: The line of fans outside the theater an hour before game time. The kids with the pool noodles. A fan who brought her Canes flag and kids to every party.
This esprit de corps permeated the city. There was no competition between watch party hosts, only solidarity and openness. Everyone squeezed in where they could. When ESPN cut to a shot of people gathered at the Lenovo Center even during away games, fans at The Rialto cheered.
“The vibes were, in a word, incredible,” Rader said, and it was really amazing to have all sorts of people here.”
The Triangle is known for its loyal college sports fans and rivalries. If the Tar Heels are winning, Duke and N.C. State fans don’t care, and vice versa. This was different, Permar said. The Canes’playoff run brought all those fandoms together.
“We are a single pro sports town and they are a unifying sports team,” Permar said.
Scenes from the Canes Victory Parade
Photos by Jed Williams, Sarah Day Owen Wiskirchen, Kori Dean, and Bryan Anderson
A Gen-Z Celebration
2006 was a lifetime ago, and hockey in the South felt a lot smaller back then.
The Canes’ getting back to the Stanley Cup Finals was a slow burn. Over the last decade, the team would make the playoffs and hit a wall. It felt like they couldn’t break through.
Still, the fan base grew, fueled by a new owner who invested heavily in the team and the fan experience. It felt like the momentum was building.
Now a generation of fans who grew up watching the Canes could experience this magical run.
One of my former students, Sam Overton, was named after former player Sami Kapanen. She was 3 years old when the Canes won the Cup in 2006. Her parents knew they loved the nickname Sami, but they didn’t want to make that her official name.
Overton, now 23, followed the team’s ups-and-downs over the years with waxing and waning enthusiasm, but regained the excitement covering the Canes for Technician, the N.C. State’s student newspaper for which I am the adviser.
She said she was shocked at the team’s consistency, especially late in the series. The mix of players helped too, she said.
This team is young, with a good number of the players in their 20s. Gen Z fans related to Jackson Blake, K’Andre Miller, and Logan Stankhoven, while still cheering on seasoned players like Jaccob Slavin, Sebastian Aho, and Jordan Staal, who won his second cup and the Conn Smythe Award at age 37.
“It’s like a young hoes run,” Fabian said, using a Gen-Z slang term. “Caniacs, young ones and old ones, have a lot to look forward to in that franchise’s future.”
The Magical Run
Back in October, my buddy Joel Frady took a vacation to California to see the Canes play the San Jose Sharks, the team he rooted for as a child. He watched something charmed happen at that game: The Canes called up a young goalie named Brandon Bussi and put him in the net.
“I thought ‘I hope this kid doesn’t suck,’” Frady said. “But now, as I’m looking back to that vacation … we saw the birth of a star.”
Bussi went on to have one of the all-time best starts for a goalie in professional hockey, and ended his season with a shutout of the Golden Knights.
As the Canes made the playoffs, Frady, a season ticket holder, felt the vibes in the Lenovo Center became more passionate and intense. The arena is widely known as one of the loudest buildings to play in. That’s partly because of physics, but mainly because of the Caniacs.
“It was a packed house every game,” he said.
The Stanley Cup Final was a roller-coaster of a ride at the beginning. In Game 2, the Canes were down 2-0 to Vegas going into the third period.
Then a sign on the video board popped up: “Tarps off for the boys!”
Dudes pulled off their shirts and jerseys and swung them around their heads like a helicopter. The Canes scored three goals within minutes and went on to win in overtime. Canes forward Seth Jarvis, who scored the winning goal, said afterward that the fans jump-started the team.
Frady called it “nipple magic.”
It took a lot of work behind the scenes to create that magic. Professional athletes practice and prepare all their lives. Coach Rod Brind’Amour had the team practice “blue-collar presses” throughout the season, reps of lifting 30-pound cinder blocks over their heads. The Stanley Cup also weighs about 30 pounds.
It was the alchemy of the team’s hard work, the passion of an ever-growing fan base, and a little puck luck that brought the cup back home.
All that proved that Raleigh is, indeed, a hockey town.
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