Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Canes' win great for the Great State of North Carolina

June 20th, 2006 was proclaimed by Gov. Michael Easley as "Carolina Hurricanes Day" across North Carolina. And rightfully so. After all, the night before the Canes became the first professional franchise in the state to win a championship.

Brett Friedlander of the Fayetteville Observer writes that the win shows that hockey can work in North Carolina.

Certainly it’s not nearly as significant as either of the college basketball national championships won by N.C. State, whose banners already hang from the RBC Center rafters. Or the multiple crowns won over the years by UNC or Duke.

Those are the victories that helped put Tobacco Road onto the map of big-time athletics and gave this area enough of a sporting identity for owners such as [Peter] Karmanos, Jerry Richardson and Robert Johnson to think they could make money by putting pro teams here. And yet, each of those collegiate titles was celebrated by only one segment of the population.

That’s illustrated before the third period of every Hurricanes home game when a highlight reel of local celebrities cheering the team on is played on the RBC Center’s video screen.

The cheers and boos are divided relatively equally when Roy Williams and Sidney Lowe make their regular appearances. And they don’t even show Mike Krzyzewski for fear that the negative reaction might get too out of hand.

But when the lights go down, the music goes up and the Hurricanes skate onto the ice, everyone in the stands is no longer Tar Heels, Wolfpackers and Blue Devils. They’re all Caniacs, the loudest fans in the NHL.


The Observer also ranks the top sporting events in North Carolina history (excluding the Stanley Cup win). You can read that here. Not surprising, college basketball victories earn the most accolades.

And in Winston-Salem, Lenox Rawlings describes how historic the win was.

"Every tradition has to start somewhere. This one starts on an ice patch on a hot summer day at the intersection of Tobacco Road and the road to the future."

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