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A throng of Carolina Hurricanes skaters gathered around head coach Rod Brind’Amour in the aftermath of the team’s Game 6 win over Vegas in the Stanley Cup Final.
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With each player having had a chance to hoist the cup, kiss it, and pass it to a teammate, finally, it was Brind’Amour’s turn.
Goalie Pyotr Kochetkov did the honors, searching Brind’Amour out among the cacophony of cameras and confetti, handing it to him at about the red line, near the player benches.
Brind’Amour held the trophy for a moment, then tossed it in the air like it was a playful, 34.5-pound toddler. He caught it with the same care, cradling it, hugging it, as if it had been 20 years since he’d done so.
“That was just a little bear hug. I don’t know,” Brind’Amour said, letting out a laugh at the postgame news conference. “I wasn’t sure I was going to raise it over my head because that’s more of a player thing, but I had no choice.”
It had been 20 years, almost to the day, since he’d last held Lord Stanley’s Cup in a setting like this. And, truly, he had no choice.
In 2006, then the captain of the Hurricanes’ first Stanley Cup-winning team, Brind’Amour’s excitement in the moment of celebration eschewed NHL protocol. Instead of waiting for NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman to pass him the Cup, Brind’Amour grabbed it off the table and shimmied and shook on the ice, exuberantly hoisting it over his head, unknowingly creating an enduring, iconic image.
This year, it was Canes captain Jordan Staal who first touched the trophy. He did wait for Bettman to hand it over. Brind’Amour was No. 25 in line. And, he said, that’s the way it should be.
“You don’t even know what you’re thinking at that point,” Brind’Amour said on the ice as the celebration continued around him. “It’s more seeing all the players look at ya, and how happy they are for me. But it’s just, it’s the other way around, you know. I just want this for them, and they felt it.
“This is why this is the most special trophy in the world, because … how you have to acquire it, what goes into it, and what it means to everyone, because they know all the sacrifice everybody has put in, and you see it pouring out of everybody. It’s the greatest feeling in the world.”
Which is why, again, he had no choice, striking a pose similar to his spontaneous 2006 moment, soaking in yet another iconic moment on championship ice.
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Brind’Amour is the fourth person in NHL history to win the Stanley Cup with the same franchise as captain and head coach, joining Hockey Hall of Famers Toe Blake (Montreal Canadiens), Hap Day (Toronto Maple Leafs) and Cooney Weiland (Boston Bruins), all of whom did so decades ago.
He’s the 14th individual to win as a coach and player for any team.
“The luckiest part of this whole thing is that we hired him, and he literally is the most important part of it all,” Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon told members of the media while he, too, circulated among the postgame chaos. “You can’t do anything without the players, but I think everybody knows he gives you an advantage every day.”
Brind’Amour, as usual, reflected that praise back at Dundon, who hired the longtime assistant to be the team’s head coach prior to the 2018-19 season. All Brind’Amour has done since then is guide the Canes to eight consecutive NHL postseasons, four Eastern Conference Finals — and oh yeah, a Stanley Cup title.
“I’ve got to give him a lot of credit for this whole thing,” Brind’Amour said of Dundon. “No. 1, he gave me an opportunity. Without him, I’m not sitting here. I just know it. So, I’ve got to give him credit there. Then, his commitment to trying to build a winner is there.
“He went out and got us players that we needed, and here we are.”
None more important, Brind’Amour often says, than Staal, who embodies the same qualities that his coach exhibited in his career, and particularly in 2006.
“I’ve been saying this forever, I don’t know where we’d be without him,” Brind’Amour said of Staal. “I put him out there every night against the best player, every night every shift, and we’re winning all the time. Yeah, we didn’t win it all until now, but we were right there every year, and it’s because of a guy like that.”
And, it’s because of a coach like Brind’Amour — who in 26 years since his trade from Philadelphia has carved an indelible legacy in the Carolina sports landscape — that the Hurricanes have a chance to extend their run of excellence.
He is the unassuming, unwitting face of the birth — and rebirth — of hockey in Raleigh. The city and the state have adopted him as one of their own, and he, in turn, shepherds the team and the organization accordingly — even the latest addition, a 34.5-pound, 134-year-old toddler named Stanley.
“It takes everyone,” Brind’Amour said. “And we are a family. It’s a cliché, but I’m telling ya, this is what we have here. We built something really special, and it’s been there for a long time. It just never quite was able to crack through, and finally we did here.”
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This story was originally published June 16, 2026 at 5:30 AM.